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THE 

DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE 

OF THE 

SOUTHERN STATES 

BY 

WINFIELD H. COLLINS, M. A. 

Professor of History and English in Claremont College. 




BROADWAY PUBLISHING 
COMPANY :: AT 835 
BROADWAY NEW YORK 



UCl 5IG 1904 
Oooyrlifht en.Tv 

OLA8S W XXo. Na 

^ bOPY B< 



-7 • 



Copyrighted, in 1904, 
BY 

WINFIELD H. COLLINS, M.A. 



All Rights Reserved. 



/ 



/o9. 



TO 

EDWARD G. BOURNE, Ph.D., 
Professor of American History^ Yale University, 

AND TO 

THOMAS H. LEWIS, D.D., 

President of Western Maryland College, 

THIS BOOK 

IS INSCRIBED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



9^ 



m 



PREFACE. 

When I began the study of the Domestic Slave 
Trade of the Southern States I had no idea of 
the conclusions as herein found. Especially is 
this true of Chapters III. and IV. I have spared 
no pains to be accurate in all statements of fact. 

The material for this v^ork was collected in 
the Yale University Library in New Haven, Con- 
necticut, and in the Congressional Library at 
Washington. The sources used are to be found 
in the appended bibliography. The most helpful 
were books of travel, newspapers and periodicals, 
Statistics of Southern States and the United 
States Census Reports. W. H. Collins. 

Claremont College, 
Hickory, N. C. 

February 22, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 
A Sketch of the Rise of the Trade In African 
Slaves and of the Foreign Slave Trade of the 
Southern States I 

CHAPTER H. 
The Causes of the Rise and Development of the ., 

Domestic Slave Trade 21^ 

CHAPTER HI. 
The Amount and Extent of the Trade c 3^ 

CHAPTER IV. 
Were Some States Engaged in Breeding and Rais- 
ing Negroes for Sale? 68 

CHAPTER V. 
The Kidnapping and Selling of Free Negroes into 

Slavery 1 • . 84 ^ 

CHAPTER VI. 
Slave "Prisons" Markets, Character of Traders, etc. 96 

CHAPTER Vn. 
Laws of the Southern States with Reference to 
Importation and Exportation of Slaves 109 

Bibliography 140 



THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE 

OF THE 

SOUTHERN STATES. 



CHAPTER I. 

A SKETCH OF THE RISE OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN 
AFRICAN STATES AND OF THE FOREIGN SLAVE 
TRADE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

It is not our intention nor is it within our 
province to enter into details concerning the for- 
eign slave trade. It seems, however, that a brief 
account is necessary as introductory to the sub- 
ject of the Domestic Slave Trade. 

The rise in Europe of the traffic in slaves from 
Africa was an incident in the commercial ex- 
pansion of Portugal. It was coeval and almost 
coextensive with the development of commerce, 
and followed in the wake of discovery and colo- 
nization. 



2 The Domestic Slave Trade 

The first name connected with it is that of 
Antonio Gongalvez, who was a marine under 
Prince Henry the Navigator. In 1441 he was 
sent to Cape Bojador to get a vessel load of ''sea- 
wolves" skins. He signalized his voyage by the 
capture of some Moors whom he carried to Por- 
tugal. In 1442 these Moors promised black 
slaves as a ransom for themselves. Prince Henry 
approved of this exchange and Gongalvez took 
the captives home and received, among other 
things, ten black slaves in exchange for two of 
them. The king justified his act on the ground 
that the negroes might be converted to the 
Christian religion, but the Moors could not.* 
Two years later the Company of Lagos chartered 
by the king, and engaged in exploration on the 
coast of Africa, imported about two hundred 
slaves from the islands of Nar and Tidar.* 
"This year (1444) Europe may be said to have 
made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, 
henceforth to spread on all sides like the waves 



lA. Helps: The Spanish Conquest of America, Vol. 
I-, 30-32. 
2Ibid., 35-36. 



Of the Southern States. 3 

[in] stirred up water, and not like them to be- 
come fainter and fainter as the circles widen."^ 

After the discovery of America, the islands 
which became known as the Spanish West In- 
dies were speedily colonized, and the inefficiency 
of the Indian as a laborer in the mines there soon 
led to the substitution of the negro. As early 
as 1502 a few were employed, and in 15 17 Charles 
V. granted a patent to certain traders for the 
exclusive supply of 4,000 negroes annually to the 
islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and Porto 
Rico.* 

So far as known John Hawkins was the first 
Englishman to engage in the slave traffic. He 
left England for Sierra Leone with three ships 
and a hundred men in 1562, and having secured 
three hundred negroes he proceeded to His- 
paniola where he disposed of them, and having 
had a very profitable voyage, he returned to' 
England in 1563. This appears to have excited 
the avarice of the British Government. The next 



sHelps: Sp. Con. of Am., Vol. I., 40. 

^Edwards: British West Indies, Vol. XL. 44. 
Brock: Va. Hist. So. Collection, Vol. VI., 2. 



4 The Domestic Slave Trade 

year Hawkins was appointed to the command of 
one of the Queen's ships and proceeded to Africa 
where in company with several others, it appears, 
he engaged in the slave traffic.'* 

In 1624 France began the slave trade and later 
Holland, Denmark, New England and other 
English colonies, though the leader in the trade 
and the last to abandon it was Great Britain.* 

The first slaves introduced into any of the Eng- 
lish continental colonies was in 1619 about the 
last of August when a piratical Dutch frigate, 
manned chiefly by English, stopped at James- 
town, Virginia, and sold the colonists twenty 
negroes.'' Even for a long while after this, it 
seems, importation of negroes was merely of an 
occasional or incidental nature. Indeed, in 1648 
only three hundred negroes were to be found 
in Virginia.^ However, several shiploads were 



^Edwards: British West Indies, Vol. II., 47-8. 

^Ballaugh: Hist, of Slavery in Va., p. 4. 

7John Smith: Hist, of Va., Vol. II., 39. 
Ballaugh : Hist, of Slavery in Va., pp. 8-9. There 
has been some misunderstanding as to the date, but 
Ballaugh makes it clear that 1619 is correct. 

SBrock: Va. Hist. So. Coll., VI., 9. 
Ballaugh: Hist. SI. in Va., p. 9. 



Of the Southern States. 5 

brought in between 1664 and 167 1, and at the 
latter date Virginia had two thousand slaves.^ 
During the latter part of the seventeenth and the 
early part of the eighteenth century the importa- 
tion of negroes gradually increased. In 1705, 
eighteen hundred negroes were brought in and 
in 171 5 Virginia had twenty-three thousand. By 
1723 they were being imported into this colony 
at the rate of fifteen hundred or sixteen hundred 
a year.^® 

In the eighteenth century Virginia sought 
from time to time to hinder the introduction of 
slaves by placing heavy duties on them. Indeed, 
from 1732 until the Revolution there were only 
about six months in which slaves could be 
brought into Virginia free of duty.^^ Neverthe- 
less, in 1776 Virginia had 165,000 slaves.^^ 

Though all the other colonies imported slaves 
more or less during the same period, yet with 



^Hening: States at Large, Vol. XL, 515. 

lOBallaugh: Hist. SI. in Va., pp. 10-14. 

i^Ibid., p. 19. 

i2De Bow: Industrial Resources of the South, Vol. 
III., 130. 



6 The Domestic Slave Trade 

the possible exception of South CaroUna they 
fell far short of the number imported by Vir- 
ginia. 

In November 1708, Governor Seymour of 
Maryland, writing to the English Board of 
Trade, stated that 2,290 negroes were imported 
into that colony from midsummer 1698 to Christ- 
mas 1707. He reported the trade to be run- 
ning very high, six or seven hundred having 
been imported during the year. In 1712 there 
were 8,330 negroes in Maryland. ^^ During about 
the same time (midsummer 1699 to October 
1708) Virginia imported 6,607^* while a northern 
colony. New Jersey, imported only one hundred 
and fifteen from 1698 to 1726.^^ 

Du Bois says that South Carolina received 
about three thousand slaves a year from 1733 to 
1766.^^ She had forty thousand in 1740.^"^ 

In 1700 North Carolina had eleven hundred, 



i3Scharf: Hist, of Md., Vol. I., 376-7. 
^4N. C. Colonial Records, Vol. I., 693. 
i^N. J. Archives, Vol. V, 152. 
i^Dii Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 5. 
i^M'Call : Hist, of Ga., II., 125. 



Of the Southern States. 7 

1732 six thousand/^ and in 1764 about thirty 
thousand.^^ 

Until near the beginning of the eighteenth 
century it was rare that the EngUsh continental 
colonies received a shipload of slaves direct from 
Africa, and even these were usually brought in 
by some unHcensed "interloper." It is very 
probable that most of the negroes imported be- 
fore this time were from Barbados, Jamaica and 
other West India Islands.^*^ But by the beginning 
of the eighteenth century it appears that slaves 
were being imported more rapidly. After the 
Assiento,^^ in 1713, England became a great car- 
rier of slaves and so continued until the Revolu- 
tion.-- The effect of this was very sensibly felt 
by the colonies. 

Even in the latter part of the seventeenth cen- 



18N. C Colonial Records, Vol. II., p. 17. 

i^Bassett : Slavery and Servitude in N. C, pages 20-22. 
In J. H. U. Studies, Vol. XIV. 

2»Scharf : Hist, of Md., Vol. I., 376-7. 
N. C Colonial Records, Vol. I., 693. 

2iThe Assiento was a treaty between England and 
Spain, by which Spain granted England a monopoly of 
the Spanish colonial slave trade for thirty years. Du 
Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 3. 

22Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 4-6. 



8 The Domestic Slave Trade 

tury some of the colonies began to show their dis- 
Hke by levying duties on further importation. In 
the eighteenth century the colonial opposition to 
the importation of slaves, arising probably from a 
fear of insurrection, became much more pro- 
nounced. Heavy restrictions in the form of duties 
were laid upon the trade. In some cases these 
were so heavy as would seem to amount to total 
prohibition.^^ But the efforts on the part of the 
colonies to restrict the trade were frowned upon 
and often disallowed by the British Government.^* 
In 1754 the instructions to Governor Dobbs, of 
North Carolina, were : "Whereas, acts have been 
passed in some of our plantations in America 
for laying duties on the importation and exporta- 
tion of negroes to the great discouragement of 
the Merchants trading thither from the coast of 
Africa, . . . it is our will and pleasure that 
you do not give your assent to or pass any law 
imposing duties upon negroes imported into our 
Province of North Carolina."^^ 



23Du Bois : Suppression of Slave Trade, Appendix A. 

24Ibid., pp. 4-5. 

25N. C Col. Rec, Vol. V., 11 18. 



Of the Southern States. 9 

The colonies considered the slave trade so im- 
portant to Great Britain that at the dawn of the 
Revolution some of them appear to have had 
hopes of bringing her to terms by refusing to im- 
port any more slaves.^^ 

In the original draft of the Declaration of In- 
dependence as submitted by Jefferson, the king of 
Great Britain is arraigned ''for suppressing every 
legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this exe- 
crable commerce."^^ 

It has been estimated that in the year of the 
Declaration the whole number of slaves in the 
thirteen colonies was 502,132, apportioned as 
follows: Massachusetts, 3,500; Rhode Island, 
4.376 ; Connecticut, 6,000 ; New Hampshire, 627 ; 
New York, 15,000; New Jersey, 7,600; Penn- 
sylvania, 10,000; Delaware, 9,000; Maryland, 
80,000; Georgia, 16,000; North Carolina, 75,- 
000; South Carolina, 110,000; Virginia, 165,- 
000.2^ 



2«Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, pp. 42-8. 

27Ford: Jefferson's Works, Vol. II., 23. 

28De Bow's: Industrial Resources, Vol. III., 130. 
Liberator: Feb. 23, 1849. 



V 



lo The Domestic Slave Trade 

Two years after this, in 1778, Virginia took the 
lead against the introduction of slaves by passing 
a law prohibiting importation either by land or 
sea. This law made an exception of travellers and 
immigrants.^^ Other States soon followed suit, 
passing laws to restrict it temporarily or at speci- 
fied places. ^^ By 1803 all the States and territo- 
ries had laws in force prohibiting the importa- 
tion of slaves from abroad. ^^ It must not be sup- 
posed, however, that these were entirely effective. 
Indeed, the statement was made in Congress Feb. 
14, 1804, that in the preceding twelve months 
"twenty thousand" enslaved negroes had been 
transported from Guinea, and by smuggling, 
added to the plantation stock of Georgia and 
South Carolina.^^ 

In 1798 an act of Congress establishing the 
territory of Mississippi provided that no slave 
should be brought within its limits from without 



29Hening; Statutes at Large, Vol. IX., p. 471. 
soChap. on Laws, C. VIL, this book. 

Dn Bois : Siippres. SI. Trade, Appendices A. and B. 
5ilbid. 

Schouler: Hist. U. S., Vol. II., p. 56. 

Chap. VII. on Laws, this volume. 
52Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., ist Sess., 1000. 



Of the Southern States. ii 

the United States.^^ In 1804, when Louisiana 
was erected into the territories of Louisiana and 
Orleans the provision was made that only slaves 
which had been imported before May i, 1798, 
might be introduced into the territories and these 
must be the bona fide property of actual settlers.^* 

Upon the petition of the inhabitants for the 
removal of the restrictions, a bill was introduced 
in Congress, of which Du Bois says : "By dexter- 
ous wording, this bill, which became a law March 
2, 1805, swept away all restrictions upon the slave 
trade except that relating to foreign ports, and 
left even this provision so ambiguous that later 
by judicial interpretations of the law, the foreign 
slave trade was allowed at least for a time."^® 

South Carolina had even before this time (De- 
cember 17, 1803), repealed her law against the im- 
portation of slaves from Africa.^® The trade was 
thus open through this State for four years, dur- 



33Poore : Fed. and State Constitutions, Part 2, 1050. 

sqbid. 

35Du Bois : Suppression of Slave Trade, pp. 89-90. 

ssMcCord : S. C. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII., p. 449. 
Du Bois : p. 240. 



12 The Domestic Slave Trade 

ing which time 39,075 slaves were imported 
through Charleston^'' alone. 

The action of South Carolina in opening the 
slave trade forced the question upon the attention 
of Congress. During 1805-6 it was much dis- 
cussed^® but it was not until March 2, 1807, that a 
bill was passed against it. This prohibited the 
importation of slaves after January i, 1808, under 
penalty of imprisonment for not less than five 
nor more than ten years, and a fine of not less 
than $5,000 nor more than $10,000.^® 

This law was not entirely effective. In 18 10 
the Secretary of the Navy writing to Charleston, 
South Carolina, says : "I hear not without great 
concern, that the law prohibiting the importation 
of slaves has been violated in frequent instances 
near St. Mary's."*^ 

Drake, a slave smuggler, says, that during the 
war of 1812 the business of smuggling slaves 



37Annals of Congress, 16 Con., 2nd Sess., p. 'jy. 
38Du Bois : pp. 91-3. 

s^Annals of Cong., 9 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix 1266-72. 
4»House Doc, 15 Cong., 2 Sess., IV., No. 84, p. 5. 



Of the Southern States. 13 

through Florida into the United States was a 
lively one.*^ 

Vincent Nolte says that in 181 3 "pirates cap- 
tured Spanish and other slave ships on the high 
seas and established their main depot and rendez- 
vous on the island of Barataria lying near 
the coast adjacent to New Orleans. This place 
was visited by the sugar planters, chiefly of 
French origin, who bought up the stolen slaves 
at from $150 to $200 per head when they could 
not have procured as good stock in the city for less 
than $600 or $700. These were then conveyed 
to the different plantations, through the innu- 
merable creeks called bayous, that communicate 
with each other by manifold little branches."*^ 

In 1817-1819 slaves were very high and in great 
demand in the South. As a consequence great 
numbers of them were smuggled in at various 
places. The evidence of this is quite convincing. 

Amelia Island and the town of St. Mary's be- 
came notorious as two of the principal rendez- 



4iDrake: Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, 51, quoted 
by Du Bois, p. 11. 

42Vincent Nolte: Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres, 
p. 189. 



14 The Domestic Slave Trade 

vous of smugglers. A writer in ''Niles' Register" 
in 1818 says that a regular chain of posts was 
established from the head of St. Mary's river to 
the upper country, and through the Indian na- 
tion by means of which slaves are hurried to every 
part of the country. The woodmen along the 
river side rode like so many Arabs loaded with 
slaves ready for market. When ready to form a 
caravan, an Indian alarm was created that the 
woods might be less frequented, and if pursued 
in Georgia they escaped to Florida.'*^ 

Mr. M'Intosh, Collector of the Port of Darien, 
in a letter in 1818, says : "I am in possession of 
undoubted information that African and West 
Indian negroes are almost daily illicitly intro- 
duced into Georgia, for sale or settlement, or 
passing through it to the territories of the United 
States.'"** 

In 1817 it was reported to the Secretary of the 
Navy that ''most of the goods carried to Galves- 
ton are introduced into the United States, the most 



^^Niles' Reg., May 2, 1818. 

44State Pat)ers, ist Sess., i6th Cong., Vol. 3, H. 
Doc. 42. 



Of the Southern States. 15 

bulky and least valuable regularly through the 
custom house; the most valuable and the slaves 
are smuggled in through the numerous inlets to 
the westward where the people are but too much 
disposed to render them every possible assistance. 
Several hundred slaves are now at Galveston."*^ 

"Niles' Register," in 1818, quoting from the 
"Democrat Press," has a very interesting account 
of how the law against the importation of slaves 
was evaded at New Orleans : An agent would be 
sent to the West Indies and even to Africa to 
purchase a cargo of slaves. On the return when 
the slave ship got near Balize the agent would 
leave her, go in haste to New Orleans and inform 
the proper authorities that a certain vessel had 
come into the Mississippi, said to be bound for 
New Orleans and having on board a certain num- 
ber of negroes contrary to the law of the United 
States. The vessel and cargo would be libelled 
and the slaves sold at public auction. One half 
of the purchase money would go to the informer 
and the other to the United States.^^ The in- 



^^Niles' Reg., Jan. 22, 1820. 

^^Ibid., Dec. 12, 1818, Louisiana had a law which 



i6 The Domestic Slave Trade 

former and agent was the same man and a part- 
ner in the transaction. This was a profitable 
business and about ten thousand slaves a year are 
said to have been thus introduced.*^ 

It is quite evident that the illicit slave trade 
at this time was very great. In 1819 Mr. Middle- 
ton, of South Carolina, said in Congress that in 
his opinion thirteen thousand Africans were an- 
nually smuggled into the United States, and Mr. 
Wright, of Virginia, estimated the number at fif- 
teen thousand.*® 

In 1818, 1819 and 1820 Congress passed acts to 
supplement and render more effective the act of 
1807.*^ I^^^ Bois says that for a decade after 1825 
there appears little positive evidence of a large il- 
licit importation, but thinks notwithstanding that 
slaves were largely imported. ^^ 

Captain J. E. Alexander in a book published 

provided that slaves imported contrary to Act of Con- 
j^ress. March 2. 1807. should be seized and sold for 
benefit of the State. (Hurd. Vol. II., p. 159.) But the 
whole story is denied by another writer. (Niles' Reg., 
Dec. 12, 1818.) 

47Niles' Reg., Dec. 12, 1818. 

4^Wm. Jay: Miscell. Writings on Slavery, p. 277. 

49Du Bois: Pp. 118-122. 

eoibid., p. 128. 



Of the Southern States. 17 

in 1833 says that he was assured by a planter of 
forty years' standing that persons in New Orleans 
were connected with slave traders in Cuba, and 
that at certain seasons of the year they would go 
up the Mississippi River and meet slave ships off 
the coast. They would relieve these of their car- 
goes, return to the main stream of the river, drop 
down in flat boats and dispose of the negroes to 
those who wished them.^^ Thomas Powell Bux- 
ton makes the statement, upon what he claims 
to be high authority, that fifteen thousand ne- 
groes were imported into Texas from Africa in 
one year, about 1838.^^ 

The "Liberator" quoting the "Maryland Colo- 
nization Herald," says a writer in that paper was 
assured, in 1838, by Pedro Blanco, one of the 
largest slave traders on the coast of Africa, that 
for the preceding forty years the United States 
had been his best market through the west end 
of Cuba and Texas.^^ 

''Between 1847 and 1853," says Du Bois, "the 



51 Alexander: Transatlantic Sketches, p. 230. 
52Buxton: The African Slave Trade, p. 44. 
ssLiberator: Aug. 18, 1854. 



1 8 The Domestic Slave Trade 

slave smuggler Drake had a slave depot in the 
Gulf, where sometimes as many as sixteen hun- 
dred negroes were on hand, and the owners were 
continually importing and shipping." 

Drake himself says: "Our island was visited 
almost weekly by agents from Cuba, New York, 
Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and New Or- 
leans, . . . the seasoned and instructed slaves 
were taken to Texas or Florida, overland, and to 
Cuba, in sailing boats. As no squad contained 
more than half a dozen, no difficulty was found 
in posting them to the United States, without 
discovery, and generally without suspicion. . . . 
The Bay Island plantation sent ventures weekly 
to the Florida Keys. Slaves were taken into the 
great American swamps, and there kept till 
wanted for market. Hundreds were sold as run- 
aways from the Florida wilderness. We had 
agents in every slave State, and our coasters were 
built in Maine and came out with lumber. I 
could tell curious stories ... of this business 
of smuggling Bozal negroes into the United 
States. It is growing more profitable every year, 
and if you should hang all the Yankee merchants 



Of the Southern States. 19 

engaged in it, hundreds would fill their places."^* 
Owing to the increasing demand, and to the 
high price of slaves from 1845 to i860, and to the 
fact that the Southern people were becoming 
more and more favorable to the reopening of the 
African slave trade, thus making it easier to prac- 
tice smuggling successfully, we have no reason 
to doubt the truth of these accounts of this il- 
licit traffic. 

Stephen A. Douglas said in 1859 it was his con- 
fident opinion that more than fifteen thousand 
slaves had been imported in the preceding year, 
and that the trade had been carried on exten- 
sively for a long while.^^ About i860 it was stated 
that twenty large cities and towns in the South 
were depots for African slaves and sixty or 
seventy cargoes of slaves had been introduced 
in the preceding eighteen months.^® It was esti- 
mated in i860 that eighty-five vessels which had 
been fitted out from New York City during eigh- 



54Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, p. 98. Quoted by 
Du Bois, p. 166. 
5^27 Report Am. Anti-Slavery So., p. 20. 

Du Bois: P. 181. 
^^27 Report Am. Anti-Sl. So., p. 21. Du Bois, p. 182. 



20 The Domestic Slave Trade 

teen months of 1859 ^^^^ i860, would introduce 
from thirty thousand to sixty thousand annually. ^^ 

From what has been said it seems to us certain 
that at least 270,000 slaves were introduced into 
the United States from 1808 to i860 inclusive.^^ 
These we would distribute as follows: Between 
1808 and 1820, sixty thousand ; 1820 to 1830, 
fifty thousand; 1830 to 1840, forty thousand; 
1840 to 1850, fifty thousand and from 1850 to 
i860 seventy thousand. We consider these very 
moderate and even low estimates. 

It will be seen later that these figures are of 
prime importance in accounting for the presence 
of certain slaves in the States of the extreme 
South. 



57J. J. Lalor: Cyclopedia, Vol. III., p. 733. 

^^This is Htde more than the estimate which Du Bois 
made before he wrote his book. "Suppression of the 
Slave Trade." "From 1807 to 1862 there were annually 
introduced into the United States from i.ooo to 15,000 
Africans, and that the total number thus brought in in 
contravention alike of humanity and law was not le-^s 
than 250,000." "Enforcement of Slave Trade Laws." in 
the Annual Report of the Am. Hist. Assoc, for the year 
180T, p. 173. The estimate of 270.000 in the text was 
made after careful study, and before the writer knew 
of Du Bois' estimate. 



Of the Southern States. 21 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE CAUSES OF THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE. 

The prohibition of the foreign slave trade by 
the States and the Federal Government is the first 
thing to be considered in connection with the de- 
velopment of the internal slave trade. Although 
before 1808 all the States had passed laws to 
prohibit the introduction of slaves from without 
the United States, yet each State had the power 
to reopen the trade at wall. South Carolina, per- 
haps, thinking it might be for the interest of the 
State, opened the foreign trade in 1803.^ During 
the four years following so many slaves were im- 
ported that the market in the United States be- 
came overstocked and many of the negroes were 
sent to the West Indies for sale.^ Had the States 



iMcCord: S. C. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII., p. 449. 
^Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., 2 Sess., p. Tj. 



22 The Domestic Slave Trade 

retained the power to import, it is not probable 
that the domestic trade would ever have assumed 
any great importance. It is not likely that the 
people of the South and West would have paid 
high prices for the negroes from the border 
States when they could have been had from 
abroad for so much less. 

The great profits, too, which induced men to 
carry on the domestic trade would have been 
wanting. Assuming this, then, the consequent 
low price of slaves in the border slave States, 
added to the disinclination of many in these States 
to make merchandise of the negro, might have led, 
as the negroes increased and became a burden 
upon their masters, to gradual emancipation. 

In 1807, however, when Congress exercised its 
constitutional right and prohibited the importation 
of slaves from without the United States after 
January i, 1808, the right of the individual States 
to import slaves from foreign countries was lost. 

It is interesting to note that only a few years 
before the passage of the Federal non-importa- 
tion-slave act the vast territory of Louisiana had 
been purchased from France. The acquisition of 



Of the Southern States. 23 

this territory had a wonderful influence upon the 
development and continuance of the internal slave 
trade. 

Of much less influence, and we might even say, 
of comparative insignificance, was the Florida ces- 
sion of 1819. In a very short time this fertile re- 
gion of the Louisiana purchase began to attract 
great numbers of immigrants who, it seems, often 
brought their slaves with them. But there were 
many who still had to be supplied.^ To meet this 
demand recourse was had, principally, to the ex- 
hausted plantations of Virginia and Maryland.* 

Tobacco, which had been a great agricultural 
staple in these States, had worn out the land. The 
price of tobacco, too, from about 1818 was very '-y 
low and continued so until about 1840.^ At the 
same time new States such as Kentucky, Tennes- 
see, Missouri, the Carolinas and Georgia, had be- 
come great tobacco States. Such quantities came 
to be raised as to make the culture very un- 



^(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 223. 

^Alexander : Tra^isatlantic Sketches, p. 250. 
Basil Hall : Travels in N. Am., Vol. II., p. 217. 

^Hunt's : Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473. 



24 The Domestic Slave Trade 

profitable in Virginia and ^laryland.^ The con- 
dition with respect to this section could be no bet- 
ter illustrated than by a quotation from a speech 
of Thomas Marshall in the Virginia House of 
Delegates, January 20, 1832: 

"Mr. Taylor, of Carolina," he says, "had under- 
stood that 60.000 hogsheads of tobacco were ex- 
ported from Virginia, when the whole population 
did not exceed 150,000. Had the fertility of the 
country by possibility remained undiminished. 
Virginia ought in 1810 to have exported 240,000 
hogsheads, or their equivalent in other produce. 
and at present nearly double that. Thus the agri- 
cultural exports of Virginia in 1810 would, at the 
estimated prices of the Custom House at that time. 
have been seventeen millions of dollars and now at 
least thirty-four, while It Is known that they are 
not of late years greater than from three to five 
millions. . . . 

"The fact that the whole agricultural product*; 
of the State at present, do not exceed In value the 



^Speech of Thomas Marshall in Va., H. Del., 1832. 
Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 2, 1832. 



Of the Southern States. 25 

exports eighty or ninety years ago, when it con- 
tained not a sixth of the population, and when 
not a third of the surface of that State (at present 
Virginia) was at all occupied, is, however, a strik-. 
ing proof of the decline of its agriculture. What 
is now the productive value of an estate of land 
and negroes in Virginia? We state as the result 
of extensive inquiry, embracing the last fifteen, 
years, that a very great proportion of the larger 
plantations, with from fifty to one hundred slaves, 
actually bring their proprietors In debt at the end 
of a short term of years, notwithstanding what 
would once In Virginia have been deemed very 
sheer economy, that much the larger part of the 
considerable landholders are content. If they 
barely meet their plantation expenses without a 
loss of capital; and that of those who make any 
profit, it will be none but rare Instances, average 
more than one and a half per cent, on the capital 
invested. The case is not materially varied with 
the smaller proprietors. Mr. Randolph, of Roa- 
noke, whose sayings have so generally the raciness 
and the truth of proverbs, has repeatedly said in 
Congress, that the time was coming when the mas- 



26 The Domestic Slave Trade 

ters would run away from the slaves and be ad- 
vertised by them in the public papers."*^ 

It seems that agriculture had taken a new start 
about 1816, probably owing to the fact that to- 
bacco was very high, being from 8 to 15 cents per 
pound,^ for Colonel Mercer in the Virginia Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1829 said that in 18 17 
the lands of Virginia were valued at $206,000,000 
and that negroes averaged $300 each, while by 
1829 lands had decreased in value to $80,000,000 
or $90,000,000 and negroes to $150 each.^ But 
while agriculture was in such a discouraging con- 
dition in the worn out States, Louisiana and other 
States of the Southwest were being opened uo 
and were looked on as the land of promise. Im- 
migrants to that favored section wrote glowing 
accounts of the fertility of the country and of the 
delightful climate. An emigrant from Maryland 
writes from Louisiana in 1817: 

"Do not the climate, the soil and productions 



"^Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 2, 1832. 

^Hunt's: Merchants' Magazine, VI., p. 47.3- 

*/ ^Proceedings and Debate^ of the Va. St. Con. Con., 
/ 1829-30, p. 178. / 



Of thfel S®uthem States. 27 

of this country furnish allurements to the appli- 
cation of your negroes on our lands? In your 
States a planter, with ten negroes, with difficulty 
supports a family genteelly; here well managed, 
they would be a fortune to him. With you the 
seasons are so irregular your crops often fail; 
here the crops are certain, and want of the neces- 
saries of life, never for a moment causes the heart 
to ache — abundance spreads the table of the poor 
man and contentment smiles on every counte- 
nance."^^ s^ 
* In marked contrast to the unprofitableness of 
slave labor in the older slave States was their 
immense profit when employed on the fresh lands 
of the Southwest. Some planters in this section ^ 
had plantations thousands of acres in extent.^^ To 
cultivate them great numbers of slaves were re- 
quired. If the crop were cotton one negro was 
needed for every three acres and these would 
yield cotton to the value of $240 to $260. The 
master realized upon each negro employed at least 



i^Niles' Reg., Sept. 13, 1817; for another such letter 
see Ibid., October 18, 1817. 

^^Smedes: Memorials of a Southern Planter, p. 47. 



28 The Domestic Slave Trade 

$200 annually. ^^ The Income of some of these 
plantations was immense. It was not uncommon 
for a planter in Mississippi and Louisiana to have 
an income of $30,000, and some of them even 
$80,000 to $120,000 (1820).^^ 

The enormous profits caused slaves to be very 
high in this section and in great demand. There 
were onlv two possible sources of supply : — first, 
the illicit traffic already spoken of; second, the 
domestic slave trade. A good negro from twenty 
to thirty years of age would command from $800 
to $1,200.^* Indeed, it is stated that at one tim.e 
during this early period they sold for as mucli as 
$2,000.^^ This fact in connection with the fact 
that In 181 7 the average price of a negro in Vir- 
ginia was only $300, and the depreciation by 1820 
to $150, gives us the reason for the rise of the 



isChristian Sciitz : Travels on an Inland Voyage, Vol. 
II., D. 186. 

David Blowe: Geosfraphical. Commercial and Agri- 
cultural View of U. S.. p. 618 

i3DavId Blowe: Geographical, Commercial and Agri- 
cultural View of U. S. of Am., p. 643. (1820?) 

i4Ibid, p. 618. 

i^Claiborne : Miss, as a Province, Territory and State, 
Vol. I., p. 144- 



Of the Southern States. 29 

domestic slave trade. It was over and again 
stated in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 that the 
value of negroes in Virginia was regulated not 
by their profitableness at home but by the South- 
western demand. ^^ The great difference in the 
price of slaves in the buying States and the sell- 
ing States was an inducement to a certain class 
of men to engage in the business of buying them 
up and carrying them South. The profits were 
from one-third to one-half on an average after 
expenses were paid.^^ Slave traders soon got rich. 
Williams, a Washington dealer, boasted in 1850 
that he made $30,000 in a few months. ^^ It is 
said the firm of Franklin & Armfield, of Alexan- 
dria, made $33,000 in 1829.^^ In 1834 Armfield, 
of this same firm, was reputed to be worth nearly 
$500,000 which he had accumulated in the busi- 
ness.^® Ingraham tells of a man who had amassed 



i^Mr. Gholson in Va. Leg. Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 
24, 1832. Mr. Goode, ibid.. Jan. 19, 1832. 

17 (Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. 4, p. 234. 
Vigne : Six Months in Am., p. 117. 
Alexander : Transatlantic Sketches, p. 230. 
iSLiberator, Sept. 6, 1850. 
i^Mary Tremain : Slavery in D. C. p. 50. 
2'>Abdy : Journal of a Residence and Tour in the U. S., 
Vol. II., p. 180. 



30 The Domestic Slave Trade 

more than a million dollars in this traffic.^^ More 
instances might be given but this is enough to 
show that the traffic was profitable. 

The cultivation of rice~^ and sugar, especially 
sugar, used up slaves rapidly. As a consequence 
slaves were in demand in the rice and sugar 
sections, not only because of the expansion of 
these industries, but to take the place of those that 
died. In 1829 the statement was made in a re- 
port of the Agricultural Society of Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana, that the annual loss of life on well 
conducted sugar plantations was two and one- 
half per cent, more than the annual increase. In 
1830, the Hon. J. L. Johnson in a letter to the 
Secretary of the Treasury gave evidence of a 
thorough study of the subject and arrived at the 
same conclusion. ^^^ 

We come now to consider the one thing, the 
prime factor, which brought about the wonderful 
agricultural prosperity of the Southwest — cotton. 
Sugar and rice could only be grown in certain 



2i(Ingraham) : The Southwest. Vol. XL, p. 245. 
22RasiI Hall: Travels in North America, 218-223. 
23Stearns: Notes on Uncle Tom's Cabin, 174-5- 



Of the Southern States. 31 

limited sections. Rice principally in South Caro- 
lina and sugar in Louisiana ; but the cotton field 
came to cover the larger part of nine great 
States. 

Until toward the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the production of cotton in this country was 
very small. In 1793, however, Eli Whitney in- 
vented his machine for separating the seed from 
the cotton. This soon revolutionized the industry. 
While the cotton crop of the United States in ) 
1793 was only 5,000,000 pounds, by 1808 it had 
increased to 80,000,000, and remained about the 
same or rather decHned during the war of 1812, 
but the very year peace was established its pro- 
duction went up to 100,000,000 pounds, and the/ 
year following (1816) to 125,000,000. By 1834/ 
it had grown to 460,000,000.^'^ During the whold 
of this period, with slight fluctuations, cotton 
continued high, but after 1835 it began to declin(; 
and reached low- water mark at the average price 
of 5^ cents per pound in 1845, which wa^ 



24Woo(ibury's Report: 24th Cong., ist Sess. Ex. Doc. 
146, p. 7. 



32 The Domestic Slave Trade 

scarcely the cost of production.-^ However, the 
crop of 1839 according to the census reports was 
790,479,275 pounds, nearly double the crop of 
the five years previous. During the next decade 
though the price went up after 1845-^ the crop 
increased less than 200,000,000 pounds being only 
987,637,200 in 1849, but during the following 
ten years it more than doubled, being 2,397,238,- 
140 pounds in 1859.^^ Of this enormous crop the 
four States of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana 
and Georgia produced more than two-thirds, 
w^hile Virginia contributed about 1-400.^^ But 
Virginia and North Carolina in 1801 had pro- 
duced more than two-fifths of the cotton raised 
in the country. In 1826 when, according to the 
official reports they reached their greatest pro- 
duction, Virginia grew 25,000,000 pounds and 
North Carolina 18,000,000, or nearly five times 
as much as in 1801, yet this proportion had fallen 
to about one-seventh. Eight years afterward 



25De Bow's Review: Vol. XXIII., p. 475- 
"^'Hammond: Cotton Ind., Ap. i. 
27Census of 1890. Statistics of Agri., p. 42. 
28Ibid. 



Of the Southern States. 33 

Virginia's crop had fallen to 10,000,000 pounds 
and North Carolina's to 9,500,000,^^ and their 
production continued to decline.^'^ Hammond 
says that "the higher cost of raising cotton in the 
more northern latitudes, and the uncertainty of 
the plant reaching maturity before the arrival of 
the frosts, prevented the rapid grov^th of cotton 
culture in these States after 1830 which took 
place elsewhere, especially as the continual decline 
in the price of the staple only emphasized the dis- 
advantag-es under which the planters of these 
States labored."^^ 

^ But while decline was noticeable in the North- 
ern States, the States at the Southwest were go- 
ing ahead by leaps and bounds. The same year 
'(1843) Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, 
ifrom which no cotton had been reported in 1801, 
produced together 232,000,000 pounds, while 
South Carolina increased its crops from 2,000,000 
to 65,500,000 and Georgia from 10,000,000 to 
75,000,000 pounds during the same time.^^ 

29Woodbury's Report, p. 13. 
soCensus, 1890. Statistics of Agri., p. 42. 
siHammond : The Cotton Industry, p. 49. 
32Woodbury's Report, p. 13. 



34 The Domestic Slave Trade 

As the cotton field extended of course the de- 
mand for labor increased and that labor was 
necessarily negro slave labor, for it was thought 
that the white man could not endure work under 
a tropical sun, while the organism of the negro 
was especially adapted to it.^^ As a consequence 
negroes were secured from every possible source. 

In short, negroes and cotton soon came to be 
inseparably associated. The amount of cotton 
that could be raised depended upon the number 
of negroes to be secured to work it. The value 
of a negro was measured by his usefulness in the 
cotton field. ^* De Bow estimated that in 1850 out 
of the 2,500,000 slaves in the Southern States 
about 1,800,000^"' of them, or nearly three-fourths 
were engaged in the cotton industry, leaving for 
all other purposes only about 700,000, or about 
the same number as there was in the whole 
United States in 1790, at which time the produc- 



33Van Enrie: Negroes and Negro Slavery, p. 171. 
Parkinson: Tour in America, Vol. il., p. 421. 

3401msted: Cotton Kingdom. Vol. I., 15-16. Ibid.: 
Seaboard Slave States, p. 278. 

35De Bow : Compendium, 7th Census, p. 94. 



Of the Southern States. 35 

tion of cotton was only 1,500,000 pounds. ^*^ 
Thus it is seen that while cotton demanded 
all the increase of slaves from whatever 
source from that time forward all other 
things merely held their own. However, 
if we subtract the number engaged in the sugar 
industry, which was 150,000^^ in 1850 for the rea- 
son that it was a new crop developed during the 
early part of the century,^^ it is noticed that other 
things lost. From this we conclude it was only 
natural that the surplus slave population of the 
older slave States where it was useless was to 
be drained off to the cotton States. Some of the 
Southern papers, notably the ''Richmond En- 
quirer," over and again called attention to the 
relation of cotton and negroes. In 1859 it says : 

"The price of cotton it is well known pretty 
much regulates the price of slaves in the South, 
and a bale of cotton and a 'likely nigger' are about 
well balanced in the scale of pecuniary appreci- 
ation."3» ^ 



36Woodbury's Report, p. 7. 
37De Bow : Compendium, 7th Census, p. 94. 
38Ibid. : Industrial Resources, Vol. III., p. 275. 
39Richmond Enquirer, July 29, 1859. 



36 The Domestic Slave Trade 
CHAPTER III. 

THE AMOUNT AND EXTENT OF THE TRADE. 

We have already discussed the causes of the 
domestic slave trade. In this chapter it is our 
purpose, chiefly, to consider its amount and ex- 
tent. 

In this connection our first object will be to 
determine whether it was carried on as a busi- 
ness before 1808. It appears that there were ex- 
changes of slaves going on among the States and 
territories before this time, but whether this was 
anything more than of an occasional or incidental 
nature is a question. 

The statutes of some of the States give some 
light along this line. South Carolina in 1792 
prohibited the introduction of slaves either by 
land or sea.^ Delaware, however, as early as 
1787, passed a law which recites that: "Sundry 
negroes and mulattoes, as well freeman as slaves. 



lActs Gen. Assembly of S, C. from Feb., 1791, to Dec. 
1794, inclusive, Vol. I., 215. 



Of the Southern States. 37 

have been exported and sold into other States, 
contrary to the principles of humanity and justice, 
and derogatory to the honor of this State." 

This law prohibited their exportation without a 
permit.- It seems to have been something more 
than merely incidental for it was amended in 1793, 
as follows : 

"That from and after the first Tuesday of 
October next, the justice of the Court of General 
Quarter Sessions and Jail Delivery, or any two 
of them, shall have the like power to grant a 
licence or permit to export, sell or carry out for 
sale, any negro or mulatto slave from this State 
that five justices of the peace in open Sessions 
now have."^ 

We have evidence to show that, by 1802, Alex- 
andria, in the District of Columbia, had become 
a sort of depot for the sale of slaves, and that men 
visited it from distant parts of the United States 
in order to purchase them.* 

2Hurd: Law of Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II., p. 
74-75- 

^Laws of the State of Delaware, 1793, p. 105. 

■^Mr. Miner, of Pennsylvania, in a speech in Congress, 
January 6, 1829, read the following presentment made 
by the Grand Jury at Alexandria in 1802. "We the 



38 The Domestic Slave Trade 

About this time slaves were in great demand 
and very high in Mississippi,^ and probably, also, 
in the new States of Kentucky and Tennessee.^ 
However, it is not to be supposed that the great 
increase of the slave population in these sections 
before 181 5 was due, to any great extent, to the 
domestic slave trade. Tliere were five causes 
which may be assigned for this increase, of which 
the domestic trade was, probably, among the least, 
if not the least. No doubt, the most important 
was the immigration of slave holders with their 
slaves.'' This immigration was considerable : the 
white population of Tennessee and Kentucky 
nearly trebled between 1790 and 1800, and be- 
tween 1800 and 1810 it about doubled, and the 



Grand Jury for the body of the County of Alexandria 
in the District of Columbia, present as a grievance the 
practice of persons coming from distant parts of the 
United States into this district for the purpose of pur- 
chasing slaves." — Gales and Seaton's Register of De- 
bates in Congress, Vol. V., p. 177. At this time the 
foreign slave trade was prohibited by statutes in all the 
states. _ 

^Claibourne : Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and 
State, Vol. I., p. 144. 

^It is to be remembered that this was just before the 
opening of the foreign slave trade by South Carolina. 

■^Monette : History of the Valley of the Mississippi, 
Vol. II., pp. 177-191, 269, 195, 547. Niles' Register, 
Sept. 13 and Oct. 18, 1817. 



Of the Southern States. 39 

population of Mississippi more than quadrupled 
between 1800 and 1810. Slaves, also, increased 
in as great a ratio. ^ Second, we consider the 
South Carolina slave trade from 1804 to 1807 
inclusive. From a speech of Mr. Smith of South 
^vwere sold in the Carolinas, but that the most of 
Carolina in the United States Senate, December 
8, 1820, we learn that only a small part of the 
negroes introduced in consequence of this trade y 
them were bought by the people of the Western 
and Southwestern States and territories.^ Third, 
was the natural increase. Fourth would be the 
illegal foreign slave trade,^^ and fifth is the domes- 
tic trade. It is impossible to more than approxi- 
mate the relative importance of these factors. 

However, it seems very unlikely that the do- 
mestic trade was of much consequence before 
181 5. Whatever impetus it may have received on 
account of the demand for slaves just prior to 



^Census 1870. Population and Statistics, p. 4, 7 (re- 
capitulation). 

^Annals of Congress, i6th Congress, 2nd Session, 

lOAbove Chap. I. Vincent Nolte, p. 189. Am. Col. 
So. Reports, Vol. I., p. 94. Du Bois, p. in. 



40 The Domestic Slave Trade 

the South CaroHna trade, must have been checked 
by the consequent heavy importation from abroad. 
For, on account of this, slaves fell in price, as it 
is said adults, at this time, generally sold in the 
Southwest at one hundred dollars each.^^ 

If the domestic slave trade had assumed any 
importance, or even if it had been going on at all 
before 1815, it seems more than likely that it 
would have been remarked by travellers, many of 
whom, both English and American, visited the 
Southwest and other sections of the country dur- 
ing the period in question. But so far as we can 
find, none of them make any mention of it what- 
ever.^- The newspapers of the time, also, are 
silent in regard to the matter. Doubtless the 
rise and development of the trade was hindered 



^iQay's Col. Society Speech, Dec. 17, 1829. 

i2William Darby travelled all through the South- 
western part of the country from about 1805 to 1815. 
and wrote two books : "A Geographical Description of 
the State of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Territory of 
Alabama, published in 1817, and the Emigrants' Guide. 
1818. He visited both Natchez and New Orleans. F. 
Gumming Sketches of a Tour to the Western Gountry, 
1807 to 1809. John Bradbury : Travels in the Interior 
of America in the years 1809-10-11, including a de- 
scription of Upper Louisiana, together with the Illinois 
and Western Territories. Ghristian Scutz : Travels on 



Of the Southern States. 41 

or delayed by the War of 1812/^ but almost im- 
mediately after the close of the war, it comes 
into notice and even prominence. In 18 16 Pauld- 
ing in his "Letters from the South" writes of it 
from personal observation, and also tells of a man 
who had even thus early made money in the busi- 
ness.^* 

At this time, indeed, conditions were very 
favorable to a growth of the domestic trade. The 
general prosperity and the high price of agricul- 
tural products, especially cotton and sugar,^^ 
caused a great demand for slave labor for the new 
and fertile lands of the South and Southwest. In 
1 8 17 and 1818 the buying up of negroes for these 
markets was fast becoming a regular business, 
and it was a very common thing to see gangs of 
them chained and marching toward the South.^^ 



an Inland Voyage Through the States of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
through the territories of Indiana, Louisiana, Missis- 
sippi, and New Orleans in the years 1807, 1808. Vincent 
Nolte : Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres. And others. 

i3Niles' Reg., Vol. XIII., p. 119, Oct. 18, 1817. 

14 (Paulding) : Letters from the South, pp. 122, 128. 

i^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473. 

i^Birkbeck: Notes on a Journey from the Coast of 
Virginia to the Territory of Illinois, p. 25. Palmer: 



42 The Domestic Slave Trade 

They were collected from various places by deal- 
ers and shipped down the Mississippi River in 
flat-boats. Fourteen of these loaded with slaves 
for sale were seen at Natchez at once about this 
time.^^ 

The statement was made that 8,000 slaves were 
carried into Georgia in 181 7 from the Northern 
slave holding States.^^ It would seem probable 
that the greater part of these may have been intro- 
duced by immigrants. However, the slave trade 
must have been great, for on December 20, 181 7, 
the Georgia legislature passed a law to prohibit 
at once the importation of slaves for sale.^^ 

Between 1810 and 1820 slaves in the four 
States of Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and 
Louisiana in round numbers increased from 202,- 



Journal of Travels in the United States, p. 142. 
Francis Hall, Travels in Canada and the United States, 
p. 358. 

I'^Fearon: Sketches of America, p. 268. 

Impacts Respecting Slavery, p. 2 in (Yale) Slavery 
Pamphlet, Vol. LXI. 

i^Acts of the General Assembly of Georgia, p. 139. 
Note. — From 1810 to 1820 slaves increased in Georgia 
about 44.000, or 43 per cent. The illicit foreign traffic 
to this State was great during part of this time. Torrey 
says in 1817, that it was common for masters in Mary- 
land, Delaware and District of Columbia to endeavor 



Of the Southern States. 43 

000 to 332,000,^^ and in some of the other States 
the increase was about as great. During the 
same time the white popuhtion in the States 
named increased from 419,000 to 645,000.^^ By 
far the greater part of this increase took place 
after 181 5. To prove this we will take Louisiana 
as an example. In 18 10 she had a population of 
76,500,^^ and in 18 15 near the close of the year 
her population, according to Monette, did not 
exceed 90,000,^^ an increase of only 12,000; but 
in 1820 it amounted to 154,000, of which more 
than 73,000 were negro slaves.^* It appears that 
the slaves in Louisiana increased only about 2,000 
or 2,500 from 1810 to 181 5, but between 181 5 
and 1820 there was an increase of about 37,000.^^ 
This wonderful increase in population in the West 
and Southwest is to be accounted for by the 



to reform bad slaves by threatening to sell them to 
Georgia. Torrey : Portraiture of Slavery in United 
States, p. })7. 

20Census 1870, Vol. Pop. and Statistics, p. 7. 

2ilbid., p. 4. 

22Ibid., pp. 4, 6, 7. 

23Monette: History of Mississippi Valley, Vol. XL, 

P- 515- 

24Census 1870. Pop. and Social Statistics, pp. 4, 6, 7. 

25In 1810 there were in Louisiana 34,660 slaves and 
7,585 free colored (census reports) ; according to Mo- 



44 The Domestic Slave Trade 

fact that after the close of the War of 1812 immi- 
gration again set in these directions, and, as most 
of the immigrants without doubt were from the 
older Southern States, they carried with them 
the slaves which they had in their native States.^® 
Another source from which this region received 
slaves at this time was through the operation of 
the illicit foreign trade. It is probable that 10,000 
or 15,000 a year were thus introduced. ^^ It there- 
fore seems that up to this time to the dom.estic 
trade is due probably only a minor part of the 
increase of the slave population of this section. 

During the twenties, however, if we are to 
give credit to the statements of travellers, the 
trade reached very great proportions. Baltimore, 
Norfolk, Richmond, Washington and other places 
had already become centres. Agents were placed 



nette (Vol. II., p. 515) in 1815 there were about 45,000 
blacks. It is reasonable to suppose that at least 8,500 of 
these must have been free negroes as there were 10,476 
free negroes in Louisiana in 1820. (Census reports.) 

26Monette: Vol. IV., pp. 281. 433- 444, 445- Evans: 
A Pedcstrious Tour, p. 173. Niles' Reg., Vol. XIII., 
pp. 40, no. Sept. 13. Oct. 18, 1817. 

^'^State Papers, i6th Congress, ist Session, Vol. III., 
Doc. 42. Niles' Reg., May 2, 1818, Jan. 22, 1820; Sept. 
6, 1817. Wm. Jay: Miscellaneous Writings, p. 277, 
Chap. I. above. 



Of the Southern States. 45 

in these cities to attend to purchase and shipment. 
"And thousands and tens of thousands/' such 
is the language of an EngHsh tourist, were pur- 
chased in Virginia and Maryland for sale in 
Georgia, Louisiana and other States.^^ Blane, 
another Englishman, who visited the United 
States about the same time, is more to the point. 

"It is computed," he says, "that every year 
from ten to fifteen thousand slaves are sold from 
the States of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia 
and sent to the South."29 

Basil Hall was informed, in 1827 or 1828, that 
during certain seasons of the year, "all the roads, 
steamboats and packets are crowded with troops 
of negroes on their way to the slave markets of 
the South.^o Vessels, indeed, from the selling 
States were sometimes seen in New Orleans with 
as many as two hundred negroes aboard.^^ 

This transportation of negroes from the border 

28(isaac Candler): A Summary View of America 

29?ir^ l^"'"7 in 1822-23; p. 273. 
jr l^'^-^^'^^^f^^^^ne) : An Excursion through the 
United States and Canada, p. 226 

soBasil Hall: Travels in North America, Vol II 
p. 219. 

silbid. : p. 220. Niles' Reg., Dec. 27, 1828 



46 The Domestic Slave Trade 

States to the South and Southwest from about 
1826 to 1832 may be partly accounted for by the 
probable falling off in the illicit importations^^ 
and by the fact that cotton and tobacco, which 
were the staples of some of the border States, 
were comparatively low in price,^^ making them 
very unprofitable crops to cultivate in these States. 
The cotton raised in North Carolina and Virginia 
decreased almost half during this time.^* While 
it appears as if the lower price of cotton merely 
had the effect in the new States to increase the 
acreage in order to make up for the deficiency 
in price. In the new States there was a wonder- 
ful increase in production during this period. ^^ 
Slaves, therefore, were of much less productive 
value in the border States, while in the new States 
the demand for them was scarcely lessened. 

The "New Orleans Mercantile Advertiser," of 
January 21, 1830, says: 

"Arrivals by sea and river, within a few days, 
have added fearfullv to the number of slaves 



32Du Bois, p. 128. 

33Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473. 

s^Woodbury's Report, p. 13. 

35Ibid. 



Of the Southern States. 47 

brought to this market for sale. New Orleans 
is the complete mart for the slave trade — and 
the Mississippi is becoming a common highway 
for the traffic.^^ 

In the summer of 1831, New Orleans imported 
371 negroes in one week, nearly all of whom 
were from Virginia.^^ 

In the same year, August 183 1, an insurrection 
of slaves, in which a number of white people were 
murdered, occurred in Southampton County, Vir- 
ginia.^^ This caused much excitement throughout 
the slave States. It opened the eyes of the people 
to the danger of a large slave population. It 
seemed, for a while, that it would have a very 
detrimental effect upon the domestic slave trade, 
for several importing States began to consider 
the advisability of prohibiting the further intro- 
duction of slaves. Two of the largest importing 
States,^^ indeed, passed such laws: Louisiana, 
which, in March, 183 1, had repealed her law 

36Quoted from the African Repository, Vol. V., p. 381. 
37Niles' Reg., Nov. 26, 1831. 
ssRichmond Enquirer, Aug. 30, 1831. 
39Dew: Debates in Virginia Legislature, p. 59. In 
(Yale) Slav. Pamp., Vol. XLVII. 



48 The Domestic Slave Trade 

regulating the importation of slaves*^ in Novem- 
ber of the same year, at an extra session of her 
legislature enacted a law against their importa- 
tion for sale.^^ And, in January, 1832, Alabama 
followed suit.^2 

The Virginia Legislature of 1831-2, also took 
up the question of slavery and with open doors 
vigorously discussed methods of emancipation, 
and of getting rid of the negro population. It was 
recognized that the value of slaves in Virginia 
depended greatly upon the Southern and Western 
markets. It was feared that other buying States 
would follow the lead of Louisiana, thus cutting 
off the outlet of Virginia's surplus slaves, and 
while the whites were constantly emigrating, the 
rapidly increasing black population would tend 
to become congested in the State, producing a 
condition of society alarming to contemplate.**^ 

But these forebodings were far from ever be- 
ing realized. Indeed, even before the end of 



^^Acts Legislature Louisiana, 183 1, p. 78. 
^^Acts of Extra Sess. of loth Leg. of Louisiana, p. 4. 
42Laws of Alabama, 1831-2, p. 12. 
''^Slavery Speeches in Virginia Legislature, Rich- 
mond Enquirer, Jan. 19, 21, 24; March 30, 1832. 



Of the Southern States. 49 

the year the conjunction of two causes produced 
a great demand for slaves and they were soon 
higher in price than they had been for years. 
First, planters from the cotton-growing States 
visited Virginia in great numbers in order to 
make purchases of slaves, doubtless, thinking 
they could buy cheaply, as it seemed that on ac- 
count of the Southampton Insurrection Virginia 
was determined to get rid of her slaves at all 
hazards.** Second, the most important was the 
advance in price of cotton. This began, also, 
in 1832. It continued to rise for several years 
and by 1836 it had doubled in price,*^ while by 
1839 its production, also, had nearly doubled. 
This increase was due almost wholly to the South 
and Southwest, Mississippi alone producing 
nearly one-fourth of the entir^ crop.*^ 

As a consequence we should expect to note a 
corresponding briskness in the slave trade. Such, 
indeed, was the case. We have no reason to think 
that more slaves were ever exported to the South 

44Dew: Debate in Virginia Legislature, p. 50. 
(Yale) Slav. Pamp., Vol. XLVII. 
45Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473. 
^^Census 1890, Statistics of Agriculture, p. 42. 



50 The Domestic Slave Trade 

from the Northern slave States during any equal 
period of time than there were from 1832 to 1836 
inclusive. Of these 1836 is easily the banner 
year. 

In 1832 it w^as estimated by Prof. Dew that Vir- 
ginia annually exported for sale to other States 
6,000 slaves."*^ During the thirties, or even before 
the slave trade was carried on between the selling 
and buying States with about the same regularity 
as the exchanges of cotton, flour, sugar and rice.*^ 
Vessels engaged in the business advertised their 
accommodations. One trader, John Armfield, 
had three which were scheduled to leave Alexan- 
dria for New Orleans, alternately, the first and 
fifteenth of each month during the shipping sea- 
son.*» 

That the trade had become extensive is evi- 
denced by the newspapers. Up to 1820 it was 
very uncommon to find a trader's advertisement 



4'^Dew : Debates in Virginia Legislature, p. 49. 
(Yale) SI. Pamp., Vol. XLVII. Dew made this state- 
ment in a paper in which his argument required him to 
prove that the greatest possible number were sent from 
Virginia. 

^^Liberator, May 18, 1833. 

^^Daily National Intelligencer, Feb. 10, 1836. 



Of the Southern States. 51 

in a newspaper, but even before 1830 such adver- 
tisements had become very plentiful. One could 
hardly pick up a paper published in the selling 
States, especially those of the Eastern Shore of 
Maryland and Eastern Virginia, without finding 
one or more. These advertisements often con- 
tinued from month to month and from, year to 
year.^^ 

An example or two may be interesting: 
"Cash for Negroes: — I wish to purchase 600 
or 700 negroes for the New Orleans market, and 
will give more than any purchaser that is now or 
hereafter may come into the market." Richard 
C Woolfolk.^i 

"Cash for Negroes: — We will give cash for 
200 negroes between the ages of 15 and 25 years 
old of both sexes. Those having that kind of 
property for sale will find it to their interest to 
give us a call." Finnall and Freeman.^- 

soSnow Hill (Md.) Messenger and Worcester Co. 
Advertiser, May 14, 1832, Feb. 11. 1833, March 11, 
1833. Winyaw Intelligencer (S. C), Dec. 11, 1803. 
Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald, Jan. 16. 1826. Cam- 
bridge Chronicle (Md.). Feb. 12, 1831. Charleston (S. 
C), Mercury, Feb. 18. 1833. 

siVillage Herald (Princess Anne, Md.), Jan. 7, 1831. 

52The Virginia Herald (Fredericksburg, Va.), Jan. 2. 
1836. 



52 The Domestic Slave Trade 

The number of slaves currently estimated to 
have been transported to the South and South- 
west during 1835 and 1836 almost staggers be- 
lief. The "Maryville (Tenn.) Intelligencer" 
made the statement in 1836 that in 1835 60,000 
sslaves passed through a Western town on their 
way to the Southern market.^^ Also, in 1836, the 
"Virginia (Wheeling) Times" says, intelligent 
men estimated the number of slaves exported 
from Virginia during the preceding twelve 
months as 120,000 of whom about two-thirds 
were carried there by their masters, leaving 40,- 
000 to have been sold.^* The Quarterly Anti- 
Slavery Magazine," July 1837, gives the ''Natchez 
Courier" as authority for the estimate that during 
1836, 250,000 slaves were transported to Alabama, 
Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas from the 
older slave States. ^^ A committee, in 1837, ap- 
pointed by the citizens of Mobile to enquire into 
the cause of the prevalent financial stringency 
stated in their report that for the preceding four 



53Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade, p. 17. 

54Ibid., p. 13. 

ssQuarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, Vol. II., p. 4^1- 



Of the Southern States. 53 

years Alabama had annually purchased from other 
States $10,000,000 worth of slave property.^^ 

When the panic of 1837 came upon Mississippi, 
it was thought, it seems, to have been caused 
through the amount of money sent out of the 
State in the purchase of slaves, and Governor 
Lynch, upon the petition of the people, convened 
the legislature in extra session, and in his message 
to it says : 

"The question which presents itself and which 
I submit for your deliberation [is] — whether the 
passage of an act prohibiting the introduction of 
slaves into this State as merchandise may not 
have a salutary effect in checking the drain of 
capital annually made upon us by the sale of this 
description of property."^^ 

The panic of 1837 caused a falling off in the 
domestic slave trade, and the low price of cotton 
which continued until 1846°^ hindered its revival. 
The falling off in the trade is shown by the fact 



^^Sl. and Internal SI. Trade, p. 14. Christian Free- 
man, July 24, 1845. 

S'^The Mississippian, April 21, 1837. 

ssHammond: The Cotton Industry, Appendix I. De 
Bow's Review, Vol. XXIIL, p. 475. 



54 The Domestic Slave Trade 

that the per cent, of increase in the slave popula- 
tion of the cotton States was scarcely half as 
great between 1840 and 1850 as during the previ- 
ous decade.'^^ The slave trade, however, seems 
to have become brisker in 1843, for while only 
2,000 slaves are said to have been sold in Wash- 
ington in 1842, in 1843, 5^000 were sold there. ^^ 
It does not necessarily follow, however, that all 
these were sent South. The increased number 
of sales was caused by two things : the decline 
in the price of tobacco,^^ and the renewed activity 
in the sugar industry incident upon a new duty 
on sugar.®^ This gave rise to a demand for slave 
labor upon the sugar plantations of the South, 
but it was a very limited demand. During this 
period the decline in the value of slaves was great 
In some States,^^ and it appears very probable 
there was a general depreciation in value. How- 
ever, before 1850 three important things had 
happened, each of which had an effect upon the 

59De Bow's Review, Vol. XXIII., p. 477. 
^^Emancipator, Oct. 26, and Nov. 26. 1843. 
•siDe Bow: Industrial Resources. Vol. III., p. 349. 
«2Ibid. : p. 275. Emancipator. Oct. 26, 1843. 
"Liberator, May 19, 1837, May 24, 31, 1839, April 30, 
1847. 



Of the Southern States. 55 

slave trade. First, the admission of Texas, De- 
cember, 1845 ; second, the gradual increase in the 
price of cotton after 1845 ^ third, the discovery 
of gold in California. The first opened a large 
cotton country to development and the required 
slave labor could be legally supplied only from 
the United States. The rise in cotton which con- 
tinued almost uniformly until 1860^* caused a new 
impetus to be given to its culture, and the dis- 
covery of gold in CaHfornia infused new life 
into all the channels of trade. 

In a few years, indeed, after 1845, the demand 
for slaves seems to have been greater than the 
supply. A writer in the "Richmond Examiner,'' 
in 1849, says: 

"It being a well ascertained fact that Virginia 
and Maryland will not be able to supply the great 
demand for negroes which will be wanted in the 
South this fall and next spring, we would advise 
all who are compelled to dispose of them in this 
market to defer selling until the sales of the pres- 
ent crop of cotton can be realized as the price 
then must be very high owing to two reasons : 

^^Hammond : Cotton Industry, Appendix I. 



56 The Domestic Slave Trade 

First, the ravages of the cholera, and secondly, 
the high price of cotton."^^ 

Indeed, during the fifteen years prior to i860 
the demand for slaves became so great that it 
caused an increase of one hundred per cent, in 
their price.®^ However, there was not a great in- 
crease in the domestic slave trade. According to 
a custom house report there were shipped from 
Baltimore in a little less than two years, in 185 1 
and 1852 only 1,033 negroes.^^ This is certainly 
not a large showing though it is probable a great 
many were sent overland to the South from this 
place during the same time. 

In a speech before the Southern Convention at 
Savannah in 1856, Mr. Scott, of Virginia, made 
the statement that not more than half the lands 
in the sugar and cotton-growing States had been 
reduced to cultivation, and that all the valuable 
slaves in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Mis- 
souri would be required to develop them.^- But at 
this time the prosperity of the latter militated 



^sQuoted from the National Era, Sept. 27, 1849. 
66De Bow's Review. Vol. XXVI., p. 649. 
*''Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 149. 
«8De Bow's Review, Vol. XXIL, pp. 216-218. 



Of the Southern States. 57 

against the transfer of labor to the cotton-growing 
States. Probably the conditions in the border 
States is best described by quoting from a writer 
in "De Bow's Review" in 1857: 

"The difficulty," he says, "of procuring slaves 
at reasonable rates, has already been severely 
felt by the cotton planters, and this difficulty is 
constantly increasing. The production of rice, 
tobacco, wheat, Indian corn, etc., with stock 
raising, in those States affords nearly as profita- 
ble employment for slave labor as cotton planting 
in other States. They have not, as is generally 
supposed, a redundancy of slave labor, nor are 
they likely to have so long as their present pros- 
perity continues. 

"The recent full development of the rich agri- 
cultural and mineral resources of these States, 
indeed, by an immense demand for their staple 
productions, have n6t only given profitable em- 
ployment to slave labor, but has improved the 
pecuniary condition of the slave owner and 
placed him above the necessity of parting with his 
slave property."^^ 

63P. A. Morse, of Louisiana, De Bow's Review, Vol. 
XXIIL, p. 480. Note. — The statement was made by a 



58 The Domestic Slave Trade 

Even Olmsted, inadvertedly, no doubt, gives 
evidence of the prosperity of Virginia, a little 
before this time, when he says that in the tobacco 
factories of Richmond and Petersburg slaves were 
in great demand and received a hundred and fifty 
to two hundred dollars and expenses a year.'^ In 
North Carolina, also, good hands would bring 
about the same wagesJ^ 

Though the labor market in the border States 
was greater than the natural increase of the negro, 
yet it was hardly to be compared to the Southern 
demand. As a consequence, w^hen debt, or neces- 
sity, or other reason, compelled the sale of slaves, 
they were often bought by traders and exported. "- 
The statement was made by Mr. Jones, of Geor- 
gia, in the Savannah Convention, 1856, that ne- 
groes w^ere even then worth from $1,000 to $1,- 
500 each, and that there were ten purchasers to 
one seller.'^-'' 



South Carolina delegate to the Southern Convention 
at Montgomery in 1858. that Virginia was then the be-t 
market in the Union for the slaves of his State. Dc 
Bow's Review. Vol. XXIV.. p. 595. 

'^Olmsted: Seaboard Slave States, p. 127. 
* "^iLiberator, Jan. 12, i8^S- 

72De Bow's Review, Vol. XXVI. p. 650. 

73Ibid. : Vol. XXII., p. 222. 



Of the Southern States. 59 

Indeed, so great was the demand for slaves at 
this time that the advisabiHty of reopening the 
African slave trade became one of the principal 
topics of discussion in Southern Agricultural 
and Commercial Conventions^* In fact, the 
Vicksburg Convention, 1859, passed a resolution 
in favor of reopening the African trade.*^^ 

The "New Orleans newspapers during all this 
period give evidence of the domestic trade. It 
was very common during the shipping season to 
see advertisements to the effect that the sub- 
scriber, a negro trader, had received, or had just 
arrived from Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas 
or elsewhere, with a large lot of negroes which 
were offered for sale. Usually the number would 
be given as fifty, seventy-five, or even a hundred. 
This would be qualified by the statement that they 
would be constantly receiving fresh lots. The 
same advertisement would continue in the same 
paper for months and even years. Sometimes 
half a dozen of these could be found in a single 



74De Bow's Review, Vol. XVIII, p. 628; Vol. XXIL, 
pp. 216, 217, 218; Vol. XXIV., pp. 581, 585, 574, 588. 
75Ibid. : Vol. XXVIL, p. 470. 



6o The Domestic Slave Trade 

issue of a paper. It would be impossible even to 
approximate from this source the number sold 
during any given time, for it is likely the number 
offered for sale bore but little relation to the 
actual number sold. The States of Maryland, 
Virginia and the Carolinas were most conspicuous 
in these advertisements.*^® 

Writers on the subject seem to be pretty well 
agreed that during this period, or during the fif- 
ties, about 25,000 slaves were annually sold 
South from the Northern slave States.'^'' 

It is interesting to notice in this connection 
what the Census Reports have to show. But in 
reading it should be remembered that no account 
is taken of the sale of slaves except as they took 
place between the buying and selling States. So 
the sale of slaves between Virginia and Maryland 



76New Orleans Picaynne, Jan. 8, 15, 1846; Feb. 3, 
Dec. 10, 1856; Jan. 7, 14, 1858; Dec. 31, 1859. 

■^"^Siimner's Works, Vol. V., p. 62; Olmsted, Cotton 
Kingdom, Vol. I., (note) p. 58. Chambers: Slavery 
and Color, p. 148. Chase and Sanborn : The North and 
the South, p. 22. 

Note. — The estimate of 60,000 given in Hunt's Mer- 
chants' Magazine is scarcely worth consideration. 
Hunt's Magazine, Vol. XLIIL, p. 642. 



Of the Southern States. 6i 

are not indicated nor those between Mississippi 
and Alabama. 

The slave population of Alabama, Arkansas, 
Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, 
Tennessee and Missouri in 1820 was in round 
numbers 644,000, in 1830 997,000 being an in- 
crease of 353,000. The slave population in the 
selling States of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, 
North Carolina, Kentucky and the District of 
Columbia at the same periods'^^ was 873,000 and 
993,000 respectively, being an increase in these 
States of 120,000. Total increase of slaves in 
both sections during the decade, 473,000, from 
which we deduct 50,000 due to the illicit foreign 
traffic,^^ leaving 423,000 from natural increase 
or about 28 per cent. Had the selling States in- 
creased at this ratio, instead of 120,000 their in- 
crease would have been 244,000. This would 
seem to indicate that at least 12,400 annually 
were carried South during this decade. How- 
ever, only the smaller part of these, and those of 
the following decade as well, were transported 



■^^See Chap. I., this volume. 
'^Census 1820 and 1830. 



62 The Domestic Slave Trade 

through the operation of the domestic slave trade. 
Mr. P. A. Morse, of Louisiana, writing in 1857, 
says that the augmentation of slaves within the 
cotton States was caused mostly by the migration 
of slave owners. ^'^'^ The "Virginia Times," in 
1836, says of the number of slaves exported dur- 
ing the preceding twelve months ''not more than 
one-third have been sold, the others having been 
carried by their owners who have removed.^^ We 
conclude from these and other sources^^ that at 
least three-fifths of the removals of slaves from 
the border slave States to those farther South 
from 1820 to 1850 were due to emigration. ^^ 



80De Bow's Review, Vol. XXIIL, p. 476. 

siSlavery and the Internal Slave Trade, p. 13. 

s^Andrews: SI. and Domestic SI. Trade, pp. 174. 171, 
117, 167. Smedes: Memorials of a Southern Planter, 
pp. 48-50. Gary : Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign, 
p. 109. (Ingraham) : The Southwest. Vol. II., p. 233. 

We have not taken into account the slaves brought 
by planters themselves independently of the traders. 
See Dew's "Debates," Pro-Slavery Argument, p. 361. 

s^Other things which perhaps ought to be considered, 
but which do not seem to modify results are mentioned 
in this note ; i.e., the mortality on the sugar plantations 
(Stearns' Notes on Uncle Tom's Cabin, pp. 174-5), and 
the deaths caused by removal of slaves from a north- 
ern climate (Olmsted: Journey in the Back Country, 
122; Chambers: Slavery and Color, 147-8). Negroes 
advertised for sale in the far South were often adver- 



Of the Southern States. 63 

Thus it is shown that probably 5,000^* slaves were 
annually exported by the selling States from 1820 
to 1830 by means of the domestic trade. 

In the next decade adding Florida to the buy- 



tised as acclimated (Mississippi Republican, Sept. 17, 
1823; Daily Picayune, Jan. 30, 1856). To offset the 
loss of life thus caused it is well to remember that the 
increase of slaves carried to the South was not taken 
into account, but treated as if they too were carried 
there. For instance, 1,000 slaves imported in 1830 
would at a 20 per cent, rate of increase number 1,200 
by 1840, or to take the middle date 1835, 1,100. So 
each 1,000 slaves brought in during the decade would 
increase by 100. If 40,000 were introduced by the illi- 
cit foreign traffic between 1830 and 1840, and 106,000 by 
the trade from the border States, it would mean a nat- 
ural increase of 14,600 for the ten years. This it seems 
would offset both the deaths on the sugar plantation, 
and those caused by removal to another climate. 

Next to be considered are refugees and manumitted 
slaves ; Miss Martineau said that there were about 
10,000 negroes in Upper Canada about 1836, chiefly 
fugitive slaves (W. Travel., Vol. II., p. loi). The 
Census of i860 reports that (Vol. Pop. XVI.) i.oii 
slaves escaped in 1850, and only 803 in i860, and that 
the slave population increased in sla\e states more than 
20 per cent, during the 10 years, and free colored papu- 
lation in the free States only about 13 per cent. It is 
estimated in De Bow's Industrial Resources (Vol. III., 
p. 129) that about 1,540 annually escaped. (For other 
estimates see Seibert Underground R.R., pp. 192, 221 
et seq.) 

The Census of i860 reports that more than 3,000 



^^This about accords with Alexander, who said that 
by means of the internal trade about 4.000 or 5,000 
arrived in the Southern States annually. Transat- 
lantic Sketches, p. 230. 



64 The Domestic Slave Trade 

ing State and transferring South Carolina^^ and 
Missouri^^ to the selling list, we find that in 1830 
and in 1840 the buying States had 672,000 and 
1,127,000 respectively, being an increase of 455,- 
000; while for the same periods the selling 
States had 1,333,000 and 1,361,000, being an in- 



were manumitted in census year of i860, but this was 
more than twice as many as in 1850. (i860 Vol. Pop., 
p. XV.). To offset the fugitive slaves and those manu- 
mitted the following is given : kidnapped free negroes 
from a few hundred to two or three thousand yearly 
(below, p. ) ; free negroes sold into slavery for jail 
fees, etc. (Liberator, Nov. 19, 1841, July 17. 1834; 
Speech of Mr. Miner in Congress Jan. 7, 1829; (Sturge: 
A Visit to the U. S., p. lOi) voluntary return to slavery 
— many States made laws before i860 to provide for 
such action on the part of the slaves. (Hurd, Vol. 
II., p. 12, 24, 94, et seq.). 

The things as mentioned above do not modify the 
amount of the domestic slave trade as indicated by the 
statistical review in the text. If one should argue that 
the allowances we have made are not sufficient, we 
would ask him to take notice also that it is more than 
probable that most of the manumissions and escapes 
from slavery were in the border States, and to that 
extent lessens the amount of the apparent slave trade. 
It is impossible to be definite here, we can only ap- 
proximate. 



SoBetween 1830 and 1840 the number of increase in 
South Carolina was only about 12,000, while during the 
previous decade it was about 57,000, if for no othei 
reason showing her to be an exporting State. 

^*^Shaffner: The War in America, p. 256. (Ingra- 
ham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 237. It was rather 
hard to determine whether Missouri should be classed 



Of the Southern States. 65 

crease of 28,000. The whole increase, therefore, 
was 483,000,^^ deducting 40,000 due to illicit for- 
eign trade,^^ we have 443,000 or about 22 per cent, 
as the natural increase. Had the selling States 
increased at same rate it would have been 293,- 
000 for the decade. Deducting 28,000 we find 
that 265,000 can be accounted for only as having 
been exported. Deducting three-fifths for emi- 
gration we have, removing 106,000 for the domes- 
tic traffic, an average of 10,600 per year. 

By 1850, the buying States had another in- 
crease of 478,000 and the selling States 180,000. 
Total increase from 1840 to 1850, 658,000.^^ De- 
ducting 50,000 illicitly imported,^® we have 606,- 
000 or about 24 per cent, total increase. Accord- 
ingly the selling States should have a natural in- 
crease of 326,000. Deducting the actual number 



with selling or buying States. It is likely she did some 
of both as did some others. But practically all her in- 
crease after 1830 at least (aside from natural increase) 
seemed to be due to immigration from Kentucky and 
Virginia, though her increase was very large, we think 
she would rank as a selling State anyhow after 1830. 

S'^Census 1830 and 1840. 

^^Chap. I., this volume. 

^Census 1840 and 1850. 

^^Chap. I., this volume. 



•66 The Domestic Slave Trade 

we have left 146,000, which must have been tians- 
ported. Deducting three-fifths on account of 
emigration, there would remain about 58,00^ or 
nearly 6,000 per year for the domestic trade. 

Adding Texas to the buying States in 1850, 
they then have 1,663,000, and in i860 2,296,- 
000, or an increase of 633,000 during the de- 
cade. And the selling States 1,541,000 and 
1,657,000 respectively, being an increase of 116,- 
000. Total increase 749,000.^^ Deducting 70,000 
which were brought in by illicit trade^- we have 
a remainder of 679,000 or 21 per cent, natural 
increase. From natural increase selling States 
should have had 207,000 more than the actual. 
Deducting three-fifths on account of emigration 
leaves a little more than 8,000 per year sold South 
annually for these ten years. 

It is very probable that the emigration to the 
cotton States fell off during the fifties owing to 
the great prosperity in the border States, and it 
might be fair to reduce the number estimated 
to have been carried South by emigration to onc- 

^^Census 1850 and i860. 
^Chap. L, this volume. 



Of the Southern States. 67 

third or one-half, which would leave ten or twelve 
thousand per year for the domestic slave trade. 

We feel quite confident that this statistical re- 
view of the domestic slave trade, based as it is 
upon the Census Reports, gives a truer idea of the 
actual amount of the trade between the selling 
and the buying States than could be got from any 
other sources. 



68 The Domestic Slave Trade 



CHAPTER IV 

WERE SOME STATES ENGAGED IN BREEDING AND 
RAISING NEGROES FOR SALE? 

As we now have a somewhat definite idea as 
to the amount of the domestic slave trade the 
next questions which naturally claim our atten- 
tion are : Were some States consciously and pur- 
posely engaged in breeding and raising negroes 
for the Southern market, and also, what were the 
sources of supply for the trade? The former of 
these queries is, no doubt, the most controverted 
and difficult part of our subject. 

The testimony of travellers and common opin- 
ion generally seems to have been in the affirma- 
tive. A quotation or two will suffice to show the 
trend : The Duke of Saxe Weimar says, "Many 
owners of slaves in the States of Maryland and 
Virginia have . . . nurseries for slaves 
whence the planters of Louisiana, Mississippi 



Of the Southern States. 69 

and other Southern States draw their suppHes."^ 
In a "Narrative of a Visit to the American 
Churches," the writer, in speaking of the accumu- 
lation of negroes in the Gulf States, says : "Slaves 
are generally bred in some States as cattle for 
the Southern market."^ And the Rev. Philo 
Tower, writing about twenty years later draws a 
more vivid picture. "Not only in Virginia," he 
says, "but also in Maryland, North Carolina, 
Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, as much at- 
tention is paid to the breeding and growth of 
negroes as to that of horses and mules. . . . 
It is a common thing for planters to command 
their girls and women (married or not) to have 
children ; and I am told a great many negro girls 
are sold off, simply and mainly because they did 
not have children."^ 



^Bernard, Duke of Saxe Weimar, Travels Through 
North America, 1825-26, Vol. IL, p. 63. 

2Reed and Matheson : Visit to the Am. Churches, 
Vol. II., p. 173. 

^Tower: Slavery Unmasked, p. 53. Note. — "The fol- 
lowing story was told me by one conversant with the 
facts as they occurred on Mr. J.'s plantation, contain- 
ing about 100 slaves. One day the owner ordered all 
the women into the barn ; he followed them whip in 
hand, and told them he meant to flog them all to death ; 
they, as a matter of course, began to cry out, 'What 



70 The Domestic Slave Trade 

Undoubtedly some planters in all the slave 
States resorted to questionable means of increas- 
ing their slave stock, but that it was a general 
custom to multiply negroes in order to have them 
to sell is very improbable. 

Many of these travellers show prejudice. We 
have wondered, therefore, whether it were too 
much to assume that they had more thought for 
the effect their narrative would produce in the 
North or in England than for its truth. Is it not 
probable that foreigners may have got their in- 
formation about breeding slaves when in the free 
States rather than actual evidence of such an 
industry where the industry was supposed to be 
carried on? It seems, at any rate, more than 



have I done, Massa?' 'What have I done. Massa?' He 
replied : 'Damn you, I will let you know what you have 
done ; you don't breed. I have not had a young one 
from you for several months.' They promptly told 
him they could not breed while they had to work in the 
rice ditches." 

Slavery Unmasked was published in 1856. Exactly 
the same storv as above, almost verbatim, is found in 
"Interesting Memoirs and Documents Relating to Amer- 
ican Slavery." published in 1846. The fact that this 
story is told in different books published ten years 
apart indicates that such instances were yery rare. 
It seemed strange that each writer should claim to have 
received the story from a friend, or "one conversant 



Of the Southern States. 71 

probable that the exceptional cases which they 
found were made to appear as the general rule. 
Then, too, the very fact that some States sold 
great numbers of slaves was sufficient evidence 
to some, no doubt, that they were engaged in the 
business of raising them for sale. It seems very 
natural that this should be inferred. Conse- 
quently travellers reported that certain sections 
were engaged in breeding and raising slaves for 
market. They made the accusation that the so- 
called "breeding States" were in the slave-breed- 
ing business for profit. But was it profitable? 
If not, why were they in this business? 

A negro above eighteen years of age would 
bring on an average about $300 in the selling 
States from 181 5 to, say, 1845. Sometimes he 
would bring a little more, sometimes less.* Be- 



with the facts," for one seems to have copied directly 
from the other. It was no doubt mere hearsay with 
both writers. 

Others on slave breeding are: Buckingham: Slave 
States of America, Vol. I., p. 182; Miss Martineau: 
Society in America, Vol. II., p. 41. Jay; Miscellaneous 
Writings, p. 457. Abdy : Journal of a Residence in the 
United States, Vol. II., p. 90. Rankin: Letters on 
American Slavery, p. 35. Candler: A Summary View 
of America, p. 277. Kemble : Journal of a Residence 
on a Georgian Plantation, pp. 60, 122. 



72 The Domestic Slave Trade 

tween the age of ten and the time of sale we will 
suppose the slave paid for his keeping. But be- 
fore that time he would be too small to work. 
There was always some defective stock which 
could not be sold f this, taken in connection with 
the fact that all negroes did not live to be ten 
years of age, probably not more than half,® we 
shall be under the necessity of deducting about 
one-half of the $300 on this account. This will 
leave $150 or $15 per year for the possible ex- 
pense of raising him. A bushel of corn a month 
would have been about $8 per year for corn ; 
fifty pounds for meat $4. It is not likely he could 
have been clothed for less than $3, and the $15 is 
gone, with nothing left for incidentals. We think 
the above a very fair estimate. In 1829 the aver- 



^Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Con- 
stitutional Convention, 1829-30, p. 178. Dew: Debates 
in Virginia Legislature, 1831-2. Pro-Slavery Argu- 
ment, p. 358. Andrews : Domestic Slave Trade, p. 77. 

^Chambers: Am. Slavery and C. Laws, p. 148. 

^'Kemble : Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plan- 
tation, pp. 190, 191, 199, 204, 214, 215. We get from 
these that out of about 74 born 42 died very young. 

^Stuart: Three Years in North America, Vol. II., 
p. 103. He says it cost $35 per year to feed and clothe 
an adult negro a year. Must cost half that much for 3 
young one. 



Of the Southern States. 73 

age price of negroes in Virginia was estimated 
at only $150 each.* 

Why did not the border slave States raise hogs 
instead of negroes? Bacon was at a good price 
during that period.^ 

The fact is the negroes probably increased 
without any consideration for their master's 
wishes in the matter. A planter could stop raising 
hogs whenever he might choose, but it seemed to 
be hardly within the province of the master to 
limit the increase of his negroes. And the better 
they were treated evidently the faster the in- 
crease. A man who had one or two hundred 
negroes, and had scruples about selling them, 
unless he should be able to add to his landed 
estate as they increased was in a bad predicament. 
It seems some such men had the welfare of their 
negroes at heart and used every means to keep 
them. Andrews tells of one : 

"A gentleman," he says, "in one of the poorer 
counties of Virginia has nearly 200 slaves whom 
he employs upon a second rate plantation of 

^Proceedings and Debates of Virginia State Con. 
Convention, 1829-30, p. 178. 
^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473. 



74 The Domestic Slave Trade 

8,000 or 10,000 acres, and who constantly brought 
him into debt, at length he found it necessary 
to purchase a smaller plantation of good land in 
another county which he continues to cultivate 
for no other purpose than to support his 
negroes.^^ 

Sometimes men who were in prosperous cir- 
cumstances would buy land as fast as their slaves 
increased and settle them upon it.^^ 

Slaves were seldom sold until they were over 
ten years of age,^^ consequently if it were true 
that the border States made a business of breed- 
ing and raising them for sale we should naturally 
expect to find in these States a much greater pro- 
portion under ten than in the buying States. To 
determine the truth of this we shall have re- 
course to the Census Reports. The States of 
Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and North Caro- 
lina, in 1830, had, in round numbers 984,000 
slaves, of which 349,000 were under ten years of 
age, and 635,000 over. This shows that in these 



i^Andrews : Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, 
p. 119. 

iiChambers : Am. Slavery and Color, p. 194. 
i2Ibid., p. 148. 



Of the Southern States. 75 

States there were 182 over ten years of age to 
every 100 under ten. Taking an equal number 
of the principal cotton-growing and slave-buying 
States, say, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and 
Tennessee, we find that they had 346,000 over ten 
and 196,000 under ten,^^ consequently for every 
176 of the former they had 100 of the latter. 
Therefore, at this time, the principal so-called 
"slave-breeding" States had a smaller number of 
slaves under ten years than an equal number of 
buying States. The numbers, it will be seen, 
differ as the ratios 100-182 and 100-176. 

In 1840 there were in the Southern States about 
2,486,000 slaves, of whom about 844,000 were 
under ten years of age, on an average, therefore, 
of 100 under ten to every 194 over. Taking each 
State separately we find that Virginia had just 
an average, having 100 of the former to 194 of the 
latter; Maryland, 100 to every 203; Delaware, 
100 to 218; District of Columbia, 100 to 280; 
Kentucky, 100 to 179; North Carolina, 100 to 
176; Missouri, 100 to 172; South Carolina, 100 
to 205 ; Louisiana, 100 to 26"] ; Mississippi, 100 

"Census of 1830. 



76 The Domestic Slave Trade 

to 206; Florida, 100 to 220; Georgia, 100 to 
188; Arkansas, 100 to 195; Tennessee, 100 to 
170 and Alabama, 100 to 190.^* Thus it is shown 
that the buying States of Alabama, Georgia and 
Tennessee each had more children in proportion 
to their slave population than Virginia ; and that 
Maryland and Delaware had about the same 
proportion as the buying States of Mississippi, 
Florida and Arkansas. It would hardly be fair, 
however, to compare the District of Columbia 
with Louisiana. 

In i860 we find that the proportion of slave 
children under ten years of age is much less in 
all the States than in 1840.^^ In Virginia, at this 
time, there were 100 under ten years to 227 over 
that age; Delaware 100 to 233; Maryland, 100 
to 229; Kentucky, 100 to 204; South Carolina, 
100 to 224; North Carolina, 100 to 202; 
Missouri, 100 to 190; Georgia, 100 to 221; 
Louisiana, 100 to 285 ; Mississippi, 100 to 
242; Texas, too to 209; Arkansas, 100 to 219; 



i^Census of 1840. 

i5We do not know why unless it is because slaves 
being higher more care was taken of them, which as 
a consequence caused them to live longer. 



Of the Southern States. 77 

Tennessee, 100 to 200; Alabama, 100 to 221 and 
Florida 100 to 224.^^ This schedule shows that 
the buying States which had a greater number 
of slave children in proportion to their slave popu- 
lation in i860, than Virginia, Maryland and Dela- 
ware, were Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Ala- 
bama, Texas, and Florida. 

It is noticeable in both schedules that the State 
of Louisiana is an exception. The proportion 
of children there was much less than in the other 
States. This is probably due to the strenuous 
work on sugar plantations. It is also noticeable 
that the Western States had the greatest propor- 
tional number of children, which is to be ac- 
counted for by the healthfulness of the climate 
and by its being a rich and prosperous farming 
section, where negroes were well fed and proba- 
bly free from the malarial ailments of some other 
sections. The conditions, therefore, were very 
favorable to the prolific negro race. 

We think it would be only natural that one 
should expect to have found in Virginia and 



y 



i^For data upon which these arguments are based see 
Census Reports of 1830, 1840, and i860. 



78 The Domestic Slave Trade 

Maryland, which have had to bear the brunt of the 
accusation of breeding slaves, the greatest propor- 
tion of children; not only because of the reiter- 
ated accusations, but also on account of the ex- 
portation of adult slaves from these States, which 
had the tendency to heighten the proportion of 
children in these States and lessen it in the States 
to which slaves were carried. 

With regard to slave breeding, Shaffner, a 
native of Virginia, says : "From our own personal 
observation, since we were capable of studying 
the progress of human affairs, we are of opinion 
that there is less increase of the slaves of the 
so-called 'breeding States,' than of the more 
Southern of Gulf States.^^ "We doubt if there 
exists in America a slave owner that encourages 
the breeding of slaves for the purpose of selling 
them. Nor do we believe that any man would 
be permitted to live in any of the Southern States 
that did intentionally breed slaves with the object 
of selling them.** 

Southerners generally have denied the accusa- 



"Shaffner: The War in America, p. 256. 
isibid., p. 296. 



Of the Southern States. 79 

tion. When Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, was 
minister to England, he was, upon one occasion, 
taunted by Daniel O'Connell with belonging to a 
State that was noted for breeding slaves for the 
South. He indignantly denied the charge.^^ And 
in 1839 the editor of the ''Cincinnati Gazette" was 
much abused for asserting that Virginia bred 
slaves as a matter of pecuniary gain.^^ 

Nehemiah Adams, a clergyman, went South in 
the early fifties biased against slavery, but says, 
*'the charge of vilely multiplying negroes in Vir- 
ginia is one of those exaggerations of which the 
subject is full, and is reduced to this: that Vir- 
ginia being an old State fully stocked, the sur- 
plus black population naturally flows off where 
their numbers are less.^^ 

It would seem that these States are not only 
practically freed from the charge of multiplying 
slaves and raising them for market as a business, 
but that, as a rule, they did not sell their slaves 



i^Annual Report of Am. and Foreign Anti-Slavery 
Society, 1850, p. 108. 

20Ibid. 

2iNehemiah Adams : Southern View of Slavery, p. 78. 



8o The Domestic Slave Trade 

unless compelled to do so by pecuniary or other 
embarrassments. 

Probably many planters were as conscientious 
about their slaves as Jefferson appears to have 
been. In a letter he says : 

"I cannot decide to sell my lands. I have 

sold too much of them already, and they are the 

only sure provision for my children, nor would 

I willingly sell the slaves as long as their remains 

any prospect of paying my debts with their 
labor."-'2 

It seems that he was finally compelled to sell 
some of them.-^ Madison parted with some of his 
best land to feed the increasing numbers of 
negroes, but admitted to Harriet Martineau that 
the week before she visited him he had been 
obliged to sell a dozen of them.-* And Estwick 
Evans, who made a long tour of the country in 
1818, says, "I know it to be a case, that slave 
holders, generally, deprecate the practice of buy- 



22Ford: Jefferson's Works. Vol. VI., pp. 416-417. 

23Ford: Jeff. Works. Vol. VI., p. 214. 

24Martineau: Retrospect of Western Travel, VoL 
II., p. s. 



Of the Southern States. 8i 

ing and selling slaves."^^ No doubt, the planters 
were always glad to get rid of unruly and good- 
for-nothing negroes, and these were pretty sure 
to fall into the hands of traders.^*^ The slave 
traders had agents spread over the States, where 
slaves were less profitable to their owners, in 
readiness to take advantage of every opportunity 
to secure the slaves that might in any way be for 
sale. They would, even when an opportunity 
occurred, kidnap the free negroes. They also 
sought to buy up slaves as if for local and domes- 
tic use and then would disappear with them.^^ 
And it was a common occurrence for plantations 
and negroes to be advertised for sale. In one 
issue of the "Charleston Courier" in the winter 
of 1835 were advertised several plantations and 
about 1,200 negroes for sale.-^ At such sales 
negro traders and speculators from far and near 
were sure to be on hand attracted by the prospect 
of making good bargains. ^^ 

25Evans : A Pedestrioits Tour, p. 216. 
■2601msted : Seaboard Slave States, p. 392. 
^■^Reed and Matheson : Narrative of a Visit to the 
American Churches, Vol. II., p. 173. 

28Charleston Courier (S. C), Feb. 12, 1835. 

29Sequel to Mrs. Kemble's Journal, p. i (Yale) 



^ 



82 The Domestic Slave Trade 

Probably we could not better close this chapter 
than with a quotation from Dr. Baily, who was 
editor of the ''National Era," a moderate anti- 
slavery paper. It appears to us that he correctly 
and concisely sums up the whole matter : 

"The sale of slaves to the South," he says, "is 
carried on to a great extent. The slave holders 
do not, so far as I can learn, raise them for that 
special purpose. But here is a man with a score 
of slaves, located on an exhausted plantation. It 
must furnish support for all ; but while they in- 
crease, its capacity of supply decreases. The re- 
sult is he must emancipate or sell. But he has 
fallen into debt, and he sells to relieve himself 
of debt and also from the excess of mouths. Or 
he requires money to educate his children ; or his 
negroes are sold under execution. From these 
and other causes, large numbers of slaves are con- 
tinually disappearing from the State. . . . 

"The Davises in Petersburg are the great slave 
dealers. They are Jews, who came to that place 
many years ago as poor peddlers. . . . These 

Slavery Pamphlet. Vol. XVII. De Bow's Review, Vol. 
XXTV., p. 595. Liberator, Sept. 7, i860; also May 6, 
1853. 



Of the Southern States. 83 

men are always in the market, giving the highest 
price for slaves. During the summer and fall 
they buy them up at low prices, trim, shave, wash 
them, fatten them so that they may look sleek 
and sell them to great profit. . . . 

'There are many planters who cannot be per- 
suaded to sell their slaves. They have far more 
than they can find work for, and could at any 
time obtain a high price for them. The tempta- 
tion is strong for they want more mtoney and 
fewer dependents. But they resist it, and nothing 
can induce them to part with a single slave, 
though they know that they would be greatly 
the gainers in a pecuniary sense, were they to 
sell one-half of them."^^^ 



30National Era, June lo, 1847. 



84 The Domestic Slave Trade 



CHAPTER V. 

THE KIDNAPPING AND SELLING OF FREE NEGROES 
INTO SLAVERY. 

Virginia, as early as 1753, enacted a law 
against importation of free negroes for sale and 
stealing of slaves.^ In 1788 another law was passed 
against kidnapping. It recited that several evil- 
disposed persons had seduced or stolen children 
or mulatto and black free persons ; and that there 
was no law adequate for such offenses. This 
law made the penalty for such a crime very 
severe. Upon conviction the offender was to 
suffer death without benefit of clergy.^ North 
Carolina had already (1779) enacted a law, with 
the same penalty, against stealing slaves and 
kidnapping free negroes.^ 

The other Southern States which had laws 



iHening : Statutes at Large, Vol. VI., p. 357. 
2Ibid., Vol. XII., p. 531. 

^Laws of State of North Carolina. Revised Under 
Authority of the General Assembly, Vol. I., p. 375. 



Of the Southern States. 85 

against kidnapping are: Alabama,* Maryland,^ 
Mississippi,® Missouri,^ Florida,^ South Caro- 
lina,^ Arkansas,^*^ Tennessee,^^ Louisiana,^^ Geor- 
gia.^^ Delaware, however, had the most interest- 
ing as well as very severe laws against kidnap- 
ping. That of 1793 required that any one guilty 
of kidnapping or of assisting to kidnap free 
negroes or mulattoes should be whipped with 
thirty-nine lashes on the bare back, and stand 
in the pillory with both of his ears nailed to it, 



4Acts of General Assembly of Alabama, 1840-41, p. 

125- 

sMaxcy: Revised Laws of Maryland, Vol. II., p. 356 
(1811). Dorsey: General Public Statuary Law, Vol. 
I, p. 112. 

^Hutchinson: Code of Mississippi (1798 to 1848), 
p. 960. Revised Code of Mississippi, Authority of Leg- 
islature (1857), p. 603. 

'Laws of State of Missouri Revised by Legislature 
(1825), Vol. I., p. 289. 

SLaws of Florida, 1850-51, p. 132-3- 

9Laws of South Carolina, 1837, p. 58. 

lOEnglish: Digest of Statutes of Arkansas (1848) 
Authority of Leg. Chap. LI., p. 333. 

iiHurd : Law of Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II., p. 92. 

i2Laws of a Public and General Nature of the Dis- 
trict of Louisiana, of Territory of Louisiana and Ter- 
ritory of Missouri and State of Missouri to 1824 (passed 
Oct. I, 1804). 

i3Hurd: Vol. IL, p. 106. 



86 The Domestic Slave Trade 

and when he came out to have their soft parts 
cut off.^* In 1826 the penalties were made even 
more severe: $1,000 fine, pillory one hour, to be 
whipped with sixty lashes upon the bare back, 
to be imprisoned from three to seven years, at 
the expiration of which he was to be disposed of 
as a servant for seven years, and upon second 
conviction to suffer death. ^^ In 183 1 Congress 
passed a law to prevent the abduction and sale 
of free negroes from the District of Columbia.^® 

It is quite evident from these laws that kid- 
napping was a very common crime. It does not 
appear, however, that they prevented it. 

Even as early as 1817 it was estimated by Tor- 
rey, who seems to have made a study of the sub- 
ject, that several thousand legally free persons 
were toiling in servitude, having been kid- 
napped.^'' 

Free negro children were the ones who were 



i^Laws of State of Delaware, Oct. 14, 1793. Hiird, 
Vol. IV. p. 76. 

ispassed Feb. 8, 1826. Laws of Delaware, Vol. VI., 
P- 715. 

i^Statutes at Large, Vol. V., p. 450. 

^''Jessie Torrey : A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery, 
P- 57. 



Of the Southern States. 87 

most liable to be kidnapped/^ for the reason 
probably that they were easier managed and less 
likely to have about them proofs of their free- 
dom, though sometimes, indeed, even white chil- 
dren, whether being mistaken for negroes or not, 
were stolen and sold into slavery.^^ 

More than twenty free colored children were 
kidnapped in Philadelphia in 1825.^^ It is stated 
that some persons gained a livelihood by steal- 
ing negroes from the towns of the North and 
carrying them to the South for sale.^^ State- 
ments similar to the following are often to be 
met with in the papers published in slavery 
times : 

"Four negro children, 18, 17, 9 and 5 years 
respectively — first two girls; last two boys — 
were kidnapped and carried off from Gallatin 



18 An address to the People of North Carolina, p. 38. 
(Y.) SI. Pamp., Vol. LXI. 

Liberator: May 18, 1849. Niles' Reg., Feb. 25, 1826. 

i^Emancipator, March 8, 1848. 

20Mrs. Childs: Anti-Slavery Catechism, p. 14. (Yale) 
Slavery Pamp., Vol. LXII. 

2iBuckingham : The Eastern and Western States of 
America, Vol. I., p. 11. Niles' Reg., Oct. 18, 1828. 
Liberator, Oct. i, 1852, Aug. 14, 1857. Alexander, 
Transatlantic Sketches, p. 230. 



88 The Domestic Slave Trade 

County, Illinois, on the evening of 5 ult. The 
father . . . was tied while the children 
were taken away. The kidnapping gang is reg- 
ularly organized and is increasing. The mem- 
bers are well known but cannot be punished on 
account of the disqualification of negroes as wit- 
nesses."-^ 

"About midnight on the 27th of September 
a party of 8 or 10 Kentuckians broke into the 
house of a Mr. Powell, in Cass County, Michi- 
gan, while he was absent. They drew their pis- 
tols and bowie knives and dragged his wife and 
three children from their beds, and bound them 
with cords and hurried them off to their covered 
wagons and started post haste for Kentucky."^^ 

Probably kidnapping was carried on even more 
extensively in the slave States themselves. "The 



22Liberator, May 18, 1849. 

23Ibid., Nov. 23, 1849. Other cases: Liberator, July 
31, 1846; Sept. 5, 1845; Oct. I. 1852; Dec. 3. 1841 ; Aug. 
T4. 1857; Aug. 15, 1856: April 25. 1835; Jan. 10, 1835; 
May 7. 1835: Nov. 6. 1846: Niles' Reg., Sept. 27, 1817; 
Tan. 31. 1818: May 23. t8t8: Tnlv d. 1818; Dec. 12, 
1818: Feb. 25. 1826: June 28, 1828. W. Faux, Memor- 
able Days in America, p. 277. Several of these as given 
took place in slave States. 



Of the Southern States. 89 

Liberator," quoting from the "Denton (Md.) 
Journal" in 1849 says : 

"Three free negro youths, a girl and two boys, 
were kidnapped and taken from the County with 
intent to sell them to the South. . . . They 
had been hired for a few days by Mr. James T. 
Wooters, near Denton, for the ostensible purpose 
of cutting cornstalks. After being a day or two 
in Mr. Wooters' employ they suddenly disap- 
peared. . . . Enquiry being set on foot, it 
was, after some days discovered that they had 
been secretly carried through Hunting Creek 
towards Worcester County, thence to Virginia. 
We learn that the Negroes are now in Norfolk."^* 

They were carried to Richmond where they 
were sold as slaves, but were finally recovered.^^ 

Notwithstanding the harshness of the Dela- 
ware laws against kidnapping and the convic- 
tions^^ under them, the business of kidnapping 
seems to have flourished there. A quotation or 
two will illustrate: 

"Two young colored men, free born, were 

24Liberator, April 27, 1849. 
25Ibid, June 8, 1849. 

26North Carolina Standard, June 21, 1837. 
Niles' Register, April 25, 1829. 



90 The Domestic Slave Trade 

stolen from Wilmington a few nights ago and 
taken, it is supposed, to some of the Southern 
slave markets. . . . Fifty or sixty persons 
it is said, have been stolen from the lower part of 
the State in the last six months."^^ 

In 1840 the "Baltimore Sun" said: "A most 
villainous system of kidnapping has been exten- 
sively carried on in the State of Delaware by a 
gang of scoundrels residing there, aided and 
abetted by a number of confederates living on 
the Eastern Shore of this State/'^s 

While discussing kidnapping in Delaware, it 
is very unlikely we should forget to mention 
probably the most notorious kidnapping gang 
which the domestic slave trade produced. The 
principal character of the gang, and the one from 
which it seems to have drawn its inspiration, and 
the one from which it took its name — was a wo- 
man — in looks more like a man than a voman — 
Patty Cannon by name — well known by tradition 



27The Christian Citizen, Dec. 21, 1844. Quoting from 
Penn. Freeman. 



28Liberator, Feb. 21, 1840. 



\ 



Of the Southern States. 91 

to every Delawarian and Eastern Shore of Mary- 
lander. A son-in-law of hers was hanged for the 
murder of a negro trader. His widow then mar- 
ried one Joe Johnson who became a noted char- 
acter in the business of kidnapping through the 
aid and instruction of his mother-in-law, Patty 
Cannon. Johnson was convicted once and suf- 
fered the punishment of the lash and pillory. 
The grand jury in May, 1829, found three indict- 
ments for murder against Patty Cannon,-^ but 
she died in jail May 11, of the same year.^^ 

White kidnappers sometimes used free colored 
men as tools by means of which to ensnare other 
free colored men, and shared with them the 



29Niles' Weekly Reg., April 25, 1829. Quoting from 
Del. Gazette of April 17. American Annual Register, 
1827-8-9, Vol. III., p. 123. 

soNiles' Register, May 23, 1829. 
Note on P. Cannon. George Alfred Townsend 
wrote a romance of about 700 pages, entitled "The En- 
tailed Hat, or Patty Cannon's Times," in which Patty 
Cannon is one of the principal characters. It is a very 
interesting and instructive story. Townsend was a 
native of Delaware and well qualified to write such a 
story. He says in the introduction : "Often had she 
told him of old Patty Cannon and her kidnapping den 
and her death in the jail of his native town. He found 
the legend of that dreaded woman had strengthened 
instead of having faded with time, and her haunts pre- 
served, and eye witnesses of her deeds to be still living. 



92 The Domestic Slave Trade 

profits of the trade. ^^ Indeed, the free colored 
men seem not to have been much averse in aiding 
in the enslavement of their ''brethren." They 
sometimes even formed kidnapping bands of their 
own and pursued the business without the aid 
of white men. Such a gang as this once operated 
near Snow Hill, Maryland. It is said to have 
kidnapped and sent off several hundred free 
negroes. "'^- 

Kidnappers devised various schemes for th^ 
accomplishment of their purposes, some of them 
no less humorous than infamous. A man in 
Philadelphia was found to be engaged in the oc- 
cupation of courting and marrying mulatto wo- 



"Hence, this romance has much local truth in it 
and is not only the narrative of an episode, but the 
story of a large region, comprehending three State 
jurisdictions." 

"'Patty Cannon's dead; they say she's took poison.' 
"A mighty pain seized the Chancellor's heart, and 
the loud groans he made called a stranger into the 
room. 

"'Is that dreadful woman dead?' sighed the Chan- 
cellor. 

"'Yes; she will never plague Delaware again. Mar- 
ster.' 

" 'God be thanked !' the old man groaned." 

"Entailed Hat," p. 541. 
2iLiberator: Sept. 14, 1849; Jan. 10, 1835. 
32Niles' Register, April 10, 1824; Oct. 10, 1818. 



Of the Southern States. 93 

men and then selling them as slaves.-"^^ Another 
plan was for one or two confederates to find out 
the bodily marks of a suitable free colored per- 
son after which the other confederate would go 
before a magistrate and lay claim to the ill-fated 
negro, describing his marks, call in his accomplice 
as witness and so get possession of the negroes.^* 

Probably the most ingenious of all methods 
of kidnapping was that brought to light in 
Charleston, South Carolina, as related by Francis 
Hall : 

"The agents were a justice of the peace, a con- 
stable and a slave dealar. ... A victim 
having been selected, one of the firm applied to 
the justice upon a shown charge of assault, or 
similar offense, for a writ, which was immediately 
issued and served by the constable, and the negro 
conveyed to prison. . . . The constable 
now appears, exaggerates the dangers of his situ- 
ation, explains how small is his chance of being 
liberated even if innocent, by reason of the 



33Jessie Torrey: A Portraiture of Domestic Sla- 
very, p. 57. 

34Ibid. 



94 The Domestic Slave Trade 

amount of jail fees and other legal expenses; but 
he knows a worthy man who is interested in his 
behalf, and will do what is necessary to procure 
his freedom upon no harder condition than an 
agreement to serve him for a certain number of 
years. It may be supposed the negro is persuad- 
ed. ., . The worthy slave dealer now ap- 
pears on the stage, the indenture of bondage is 
ratified in the presence of the worthy magistrate 
and the constable, who shares the price of blood, 
and the victim is hurried on shipboard to be seen 
no more."^^ 

From the nature of our information concerning 
kidnapping it is readily seen that we have but 
little basis for a statistical estimate of the num- 
ber kidnapped. It must have ranged, however, 
from a few hundred to two or three thousand 
annually. It appears quite certain that as many 
were kidnapped as escaped from bondage, if not 
more. 

The ''Liberator" alone records nearly a hun- 
dred cases of detected kidnapping between 1831 



s^Francis Hall : Travels in Canada and the United 
States, p. 425. 



Of the Southern States. 95 

and i860. But the number detected probably 
bears but little relation to the number actually 
kidnapped. As was before shown in the cases 
mentioned almost whole families were carried 
off, and that in most cases, when a discovery was 
made, it was found that the kidnapping gang 
had been in the business for years. 



96 The Domestic Slave Trade 



CHAPTER VI. 

SLAVE "prisons," MARKETS^ CHARACTER OF TRAD- 
DERS^ ETC. 

In all the large towns and cities were slave 
"prisons" or "pens"^ in which slaves were kept 
until enough for a drove or shipment could be 
collected.^ The slave prisons ranged all the way 
from a rude whitewashed shed^ to large and com- 
modious establishments accommodating hundreds 
of slaves. A description of one of these — The 
Franklin and Armfield prison which was in Alex- 
andria — by Andrews is rather interesting:' 

"The establishment," he says, . . . "is 
situated in a retired quarter in the southern part 
of the city. It is easily distinguished as you 
approach it, by the high, whitewashed wall sur- 



ipeatherstonhaiigh : Excursion Through the Slave 
States, Vol. I., p. 128. 

2Liberator: Feb. 16, 1833. Buckingham: Slave 
States, Vol. II., p. 485- 

3Reed and Matheson : Visit to Am. Churches, Vol. 
I., p. 32. 



Of the Southern States. 97 

rounding the yards and giving to it tlie appear- 
ance of a penitentiary. The dwelHng house is of 
brick, three stories high, and opening directly 
upon the street; over the front door is the name 
of the firm. . . . 

"We passed out of the back door of the dv^ell- 
ing house and entered a spacious yard nearly sur- 
rounded with neatly whitewashed two story 
buildings, devoted to the use of the slaves. Turn- 
ing to the left we came to a strong grated door 
of iron opening into a spacious yard surrounded 
by a high whitewashed wall, one side of this yard 
was roofed, but the principal part was open to 
the air. Along the covered side extended a table, 
at which the slaves had recently taken their din- 
ner, which, judging from what remained, had 
been wholesome and abundant. . . . The 
gate was secured by strong padlocks and bolts."* 

Such was the slave prison of one of the largest 
and most prosperous slave-dealing firms. 

There were many dealers who had no place of 
their own in which to keep slaves, but were de- 



^Andrews: Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, 
pp. 135-7. 



98 The Domestic Slave Trade 

pendent upon the ''prisons" of others.^ Indeed, 
at Washington, the city pubhc prison was often 
used by negro traders as a place of safety for 
their slaves. The keeper was paid by the traders 
for the privilege.^ This practice continued a great 
number of years. In 1843 the poet Whittier thus 
describes the prison : 

"It is a damp, dark and loathsome building. 
We passed between two ranges of small stone 
cells filled with blacks. We noticed five or six 
in a single cell which seemed scarcely large 
enough for a solitary tenant. The heat was suffo- 
cating. In rainy weather the keeper told us that 
the prison was uncomfortably wet. In winter 
there could be no fire in these cells. The keener 
with some reluctance admitted that he received 
negroes from the traders and kept them until they 
were sold, at thirty-four cents per day."'' 

While, no doubt, some traders kept their 
"prisons" in as good condition^ as circumstances 

^Sturge: A Visit to the United States, p. 107. 
^Miner: Speech in Congress, Jan. 6, 1829. 
Gales and Seaton's Register of Debates in Con- 
gress, Vol. v., p. 167. 

■^Whittier: A Letter in Emancipator, Nov. 23, 1843. 
^Andrews: Slavery and the Domestic Trade, p. 164. 



Of the Southern States. 99 

would allow, there were others, and probably the 
majority, who did not. A Northern minister de- 
scribes those at Richmond in 1845, ^s "mostly 
filthy and loathsome places."^ 

In the buying States two of the principal slave 
markets were Natchez and New Orleans. ^^ That 
of Natchez is thus described about 1835 by In- 
graham : 

''A mile from Natchez we come to a cluster of 
rough wooden buildings, in the angle of two 
roads in front of which several saddle horses, 
either tied or held by servants, indicated a place 
of popular resort. . . . We entered through 
a wide gate into a narrow court yard. A line of 
negroes extended in a semicircle around the right 
side of the yard. There were in all about forty. 
Each was dressed in the usual uniform when in 
market consisting of a fashionably shaped black 
fur hat, . . . trousers of coarse corduroy 
velvet, good vests, strong shoes, and white cotton 
shirts. "^^ . . . 



^Christian Freeman, Sept. lo, 1845. 
i^African Repository, Vol. V., p. 381, cited from 
Mercantile Advertiser of New Orleans, Jan. 21, 1830. 
Tower : Slavery Unmasked, p. 304. 
"(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 192. 



^ofC. 



loo The Domestic Slave Trade 

'There are four or five markets in the vicinity 

of Natchez. Several hundred slaves of all ages 

are exposed to sale. . . . Two extensive 

markets for slaves opposite each other, on the 

road to Washington three miles from Nat- 
chez."i2 

A slave market in New Orleans was described 
in 1844 2s a large and splendidly decorated edi- 
fice, which had the appearance of having been 
fitted up as a place of recreation. It had a number 
of apartments, a handsome archway, and a large 
green lawn or outer court "beautifully decorated 
with trees." In this lawn the sale of slaves was 
held.i^ 

When a trader in the selling States had col- 
lected enough for a shipment or "coffle" they were 
sent to the markets in the buying States.^* Slaves 
were sent South both by land and water.^^ In the 



i2Ibid., p. 201. 

i^Christian Freeman, Jan. 2, 1845 '> quoted from West- 
ern Citi/:en by C. F. 

i^Buckingham : Slave States of Am. II.. p. 485. 
Liberator, Feb. 16, 1833. Abdy : Journal of a 
Residence in the United States. Vol. II., p. 100. 

i^Andrews: SI. and the Domestic SI. Trade, p. 142. 



Of the Southern States. loi 

winter they were usually sent by water, but in 
summer they were often sent by land.^^ 

In the transportation of slaves the utmost pre- 
cautions were necessary to prevent revolt or es- 
cape.^^ When a "coffle" or "drove" was formed 
to undertake its march of seven or eight weeks 
to the South^^ the men would be chained, — "two 
by two, and a chain passing through the double 
file and fastening from the right and left hands 
of those on either side of the chain. "^^ 

This seems to have been the usual method of 
securing them. The purpose was to have the 
men so completely bound as to render escape or 
resistance impossible. The girls, children and 
women usually were not chained and even some- 
times rode in the wagons which accompanied the 

leibid. : p. 78. 

Buckingham: Slave States, Vol. II., p. 485. 

Liberator, Feb. 16, 1833. 

Featherstonhaugh : Excursion Through the Slave 
States, Vol. I., p. 120. 
"Niles' Reg., Sept. 5, 1829. 

Featherstonhaugh : Excursion Through the Slave 
States, Vol. I., p. 122. 

Niles' Reg., Oct. 14, 1826; Nov. 18, 1826; May 20, 
1826. 

i^(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 238. 
i^Adams: Southern View of Slavery, p. ']']. 



I02 The Domestic Slave Trade 

train.-'' The "droves" were conducted by white 
men, usually, on horseback and well armed with 
pistols-^ and whips.^^ 

The negroes were usually well fed on their 
way South and when they arrived at their desti- 
nation, though their personal appearance was not 
improved, they were generally stouter and in bet- 
ter condition than when they began their march. 
Pains was now taken to have them polish their 
skins and dress themselves in the uniform suits* 
provided for the purpose. ^^ Then they were ready 
for market. At the sale the auctioneer would de- 
scant at large upon the merits and capabilities of 
the subject.^^ The slave, too, often would enter 
into a display of his physical appearance with as 

2»The Christian Citizen. Oct. 26, 1844. 
Featherstonhaugh : Excursion Through the Slave 
States, Vol. I., pp. 120-122. 

Palmer: Journal of Travels in the U. S., p. 142, 
Birkbeck : Notes on a Journey from the Coast of 
Va.. p. 25. 

2^ (Paulding) : Letters From the South, Vol. I., p. 
128. (Ed. 18 1 7.) 
22Buckingham : Slave States of America, Vol. II., p. 

533- 

(Plane) : An Excursion Through the U. S. and 
Canada, p. 226. 

23(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 238. 

2qbid. : Vol. II., p. 30. 



Of the Southern States. 103 

much apparent earnestness to command a high 
price as though he were to share the profits. He 
would seem to enjoy a spirited bidding.^^ Each 
negro wished to be sold first as it was thought by 
them to be an evidence of superiority.^*' 

At the sales and auctions the purchaser was al- 
lowed the greatest freedom in the examination 
of the slaves for sale. And he would scrutinize 
them as carefully as though they were horses or 
cattle. The teeth, eyes, feet and shoulders of 
both men and women were inspected, sometimes 
without any show of decency.-^ Scars or marks 
of the lash decreased their value in market, some- 
times the sale would be lost for that reason.^^ 

In the slave trade there is no doubt that families 
were often separated.^^ Though Andrews tells of 
a trader sending a lot of mothers without their 

25Ashworth : A Tour in the U. S., Cuba and Canada, p. 
81; also Sequel to Mrs. Kemble's Journal, p. 8 in (Y.) 
SI. Pamp., Vol. XVII. 

(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 201. 
,26(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. IL, p. 201. 
27Christian Freeman: April 10, 1845. 

Christian Citizen, Nov. 23, 1844. 
28Shaffner: The War in America, p. 293. 
29Tower : Slavery Unmasked, p. 127-8. 
Andrews: SI. and Domestic Slave Trade, p. 105. 



T04 The Domestic Slave Trade 

children in such a way as to lead one to believe 
such a case was exceptional.^^ Negroes on large 
plantations were sometimes advertised to be sold 
in families.^^ 

Nehemiah Adams says that in settling estates 
in the South "good men exercise as much care 
with regard to the disposition of slaves as though 
they were providing for white orphan children. 
. . . Slaves are allowed to find masters and 
mistresses who will buy them."^^ 

Another traveller in speaking of the slave auc- 
tion at Natchez, says : 

"It is a rule seldom deviated from, to sell 
families and relations together, if practicable. A 
negro trader in my presence refused to sell a 
negro girl for whom a planter offered a high price 
because he would not also purchase her sister."^^ 

As a rule negroes had a great dislike to be sold 
South : in the earlv historv of the trade this 



3(>Andrews : Slavery and Domestic SI. Trade, p. 164. 

3iLiberator, May 6. 1853. 
Sequel to Mrs. Kemble's Journal, p. 11, in (Yale) 
SI. Pamp., Vol. XVII. 

32Adams: Southern View of Slavery, p. 72. 

33(Ingraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 201. 



Of the Southern States. 105 

amounted to horror for them.^* Whether this dis- 
like arose from the impression that they might not 
be treated so well or simply from the natural 
dislike of removing to a strange land is a question, 
though the latter seems much more probable.^^ 
In 1835, however, it appears that the Virginia 
slaves were not so averse to going South for the 
reason that many who had gone there sent back 
such favorable accounts of their circumstances.^* 

Another phase of the domestic slave trade, 
which it may not be out of way to mention, was 
the traffic in beautiful mulatto or quadroon girls. 
It was a part of the slave trader's business to 
search out and obtain them'. At New Orleans, 
or elsewhere, they were sold at very high prices 
for the purpose of prostitution or as mistresses.^''' 

From a letter written in 1850 by a slave dealer 



34 (Paulding) : Letters from the South, Vol. I., p. 
126; (Ed. 1817). 

Torrey: A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in 
U. S., p. 145. 
^Olmsted : Cotton Kingdom, Vol. I., p. 336. 
3S Andrews : Slavery and Domestic SI. Trade, p. 118. 
^''Candler : A Summary View of Am., p. 276. 

Liberator, June 18, 1847. 

(Blane) : Excursion Through the U. S., p. 209. 

Tower : Slavery Unmasked, p. 304-7. 



io6 The Domestic Slave Trade 

of Alexandria, Virginia, we quote the following : 

"We . . . cannot afiford to sell the girl 
Emily for less than $i,8oo. . . . We have 
two or three offers for Emily from gentlemen 
from the South. She is said to be the finest look- 
ing woman in this country.^^ 

In New Orleans they often brought very high 
prices. The ''Liberator" quoting from the New 
York "Sun" in 1837 concerning the sale of a girl 
at New Orleans, says: "The beautiful Martha 
was struck off at $4,500."^^ And in the New Or- 
leans "Picayune," of the same year, was an ac- 
count of a girl — "remarkable for her beauty and 
intelligence" — who sold at $7,000 in New Or- 
leans.^*' Many other instances might be given 
but we think these sufficient. 

A word now with reference to slave traders 
and the general estimation in which they were 
held in the South. 

Ingraham says: "Their admission into society 
. . . is not recognized. Planters associate 

38Stowe: Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 169. 
3»Liberator. July 7. 1837. 

^•^Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, Vol. II., p. 409, 
July, 1837. 



Of the Southern States. 107 

with them freely enough, in the way of business, 
but notice them no further. A slave trader is 
much like other men. He is to-day a plain farmer 
with twenty or thirty slaves endeavoring to earn 
a few dollars from the worn out land, in some 
old homestead. He is in debt and hears he can 
sell his slaves in Mississippi for twice their value 
in his own State. He takes his slaves and goes to 
Mississippi. He finds it profitable and his in- 
clinations prompt him to buy of his neighbors 
when he returns home and makes another trip to 
Mississippi, thus he gets started.''*^ 

Some traders were no doubt honorable men. 
Indeed, Andrews gives us a very pleasing pic- 
ture of Armfield, the noted Alexandria, Virginia, 
slave dealer. He describes him as "a man of fine 
personal appearance, and of engaging and grace- 
ful manners."^2 _ ^ ^ "Nothing, however, can rec- 
oncile the mora l sense of the Southern public to 

^Klngraham) : The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 245. 

42Andrews: Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade 
PP- 136, 150. 

Note:— It is interesting to compare Featherston- 
haughs characterization of Armfield, which is- "I 
looked steadily at the fellow, and recollecting him 
lound no longer any difficulty in accounting for such a 



io8 The Domestic Slave Trade 

the character of a trader in slaves. However 
honorable may be his dealings his employment 
is accounted infamous/'*^ 

Upon the whole, no doubt the characterization 
of the slave traders by Featherstonhaugh was a 
true one : 

"Sordid, illiterate and vulgar . . . men who 
have nothing whatever in common with the gen- 
tlemen of the Southern States."** 

Finch says : "A slave dealer is considered the 
lowest and most degraded occupation, and none 
will engage in it unless they have no other means 
of support."*^ 

Indeed it seems they were accounted the abhor- 
rence of every one. Their descendants, when 
known, had a blot upon them and the property 
acquired in the traffic as well.*^ 



compound of everything vulgar and revolting and to- 
tally without education. I had now a key to his man- 
ner and the expression of his countenance." — Feather- 
stonhaugh : Excursion Through the Slave States, Vol. 
I., p. 167. 

^'Andrews : SI. and Domestic SI. Trade, p. 150. 

"^^Featherstonhaugh : Excursion Through the Slave 
States. Vol. I., p. 128. 

^^Finch: Travels in the U. S. and Canada, p. 241. 

^^Adams: Southern View of Slavery, p. 'j']. 



Of the Southern States. 109 



CHAPTER VIL 

LAWS OF THE SOUTHERN STATES WITH REFERENCE 
TO IMPORTATION AND EXPORTATION OF SLAVES. 

VIRGINIA. 

The General Assembly of Virginia, 1778, en- 
acted that "no slaves shall hereafter be imported 
into this commonwealth, by sea or land, nor shall 
any slave or slaves so imported be sold or bought 
by any person whatever," under penalty of one 
thousand pounds for every slave imported and five 
hundred pounds for every one either sold or 
bought, and the slave himself to be free. It was 
provided, however, that persons removing to the 
State from other States with the intention of be- 
coming citizens of Virginia might bring their 
slaves with them, upon taking the following oath 
within ten days after their removal : 

"I. A. B. do swear that my removal to the State 
of Virginia was with no intention to evade the 
act for preventing the further importation of 



no The Domestic Slave Trade 

slaves within this commonwealth, nor have I 
brought with me, nor have any of the slaves now 
in my possession been imported from Africa, or 
any of the West India Islands since the first day 
of November 1778, so help me God."^ 

This act did not apply to persons claiming 
slaves by descent, marriage or divorce, or to any 
citizen of Virginia who was then the actual 
owner of slaves within any of the United States, 
nor to transient travellers having slaves as neces- 
sary attendants.^ 

In 1785 a law was passed declaring free the 
slaves who should afterward be imported and 
kept in the State a year, whether at one time or 
at several times, (a) The same exceptions were 
made as in the law of 1778. 

In 1796 these acts were amended making it law- 
ful for any citizen of the United States residing 
in Virginia or owning lands there to carry out 
any slaves born in the State and bring them 
back, provided they had neither been hired nor 



^Hening: Statutes at Large, Vol. IX.. p. 471. 

2Hening: Vol. IX., p. 471. (a) Ibid., Vol. XII., p. 
182. 



Of the Southern States. in 

sold. If, however, they were entitled to freedom 
in the State to which they were removed, they 
could not again be held as slaves in Virginia.^ 

In 1806 a law was passed totally prohibiting 
the introduction of slaves into Virginia.* It was 
amended, however, in 181 1, in favor of residents 
of the State, as it restored to them the same privi- 
leges concerning the importation of slaves which 
they had under the law of 1778.^ An act of 
January 9, 18 13, further amended and extended to 
hnmigrants the right of bringing in slaves. They 
were allowed to introduce only such slaves as they 
had owned for two years or acquired by marriage 
or inheritance. Any one introducing slaves was 
put under obligation not to sell them within two 
years. Those thus importing slaves were required 
also to exhibit before a justice of the peace a 
written statement with the name, age, sex and de- 
scription of each slave, and to take oath that the 
account was true and that they were not intro- 
duced for the purpose of sale or with the inten- 

^Shepherd : Statutes at Large, of Va., Vol. II., p. 19. 
^Shepherd: Statutes at Large, Vol. III., p. 251. 
^Acts of 1810-1811, p. 15, C 14. 



112 The Domestic Slave Trade 

tion for evading the laws.^ The last act of Virginia 
regarding the importation of slaves was that of 
1819. This lav^ permitted the importation of 
slaves not convicted of crime, from any of the 
United States. "^ 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

In 1792 South Carolina passed a law to prohibit 
for two years the importation of slaves from 
Africa, or from ''other places beyond the seas;" 
it also prohibited the introduction of slaves who 
were bound for a term of years in any of the 
United States. An exception, however, was made 
of citizens who might acquire slaves by marriaee, 
or actual settlers in the State and of travellers.^ 
This act was revised in 1794 and extended to 
1797. As revised it totally prohibited the intro- 
duction of slaves into South Carolina from all 
places from without the United States.^ In 1796 

^Acts of the General Assembly of Va., 1812-13, p. 
26. C. 28. 

nbid., 1818-19, p. 2,7^ C. 26. 

spaust: Acts of General Assembly of S. C. From 
179T to 1794, Vol. I., p. 215. McCord, Statutes at 
Large of S. C. Vol. VII., p. 431- 

i-Ibid., p. 444. 



Of the Southern States. 113 

it was extended to 1799;^^ again extended in 1798 
to 1 80 1 (a) ; and in 1800 it was again extended 
to 1803. In 1800, also, an act was passed totally 
prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the 
State except by immigrants,^^ and in 1801 it was 
made even more stringent : Any slaves brought in 
were to be sold by the sheriff of the district in 
which they were found upon the order of the 
court. ^- It was found that the acts of 1800 and 

1801 were too rigorous and inconvenient. In 

1802 that part of the laws which prevented citi- 
zens of other States from carrying their own 
slaves through South Carolina was repealed. It 
was provided that any one who wished to pass 
through the State with slaves might do so; but 
near the place where he was to enter the State 
he should take the following oath before a magis- 
trate or quorum : 

"I, A. B., do swear that the slaves which I am 
carrying through this State are bona fide my prop- 
erty, and that I will not sell, hire or dispose of 



9McCord: Vol. VII., p. 433- 
loibid. : p. 434 (a) p. 435. 
"Ibid. : pp. 436-439- 



114 The Domestic Slave Tra3e 

said slaves, or either of them, to any resident or 
citizen, or body corporate or pubUc, or any other 
person or persons whomsoever, within the State 
of South CaroHna, but will travel directly to the 
place where I intend to move.^^ 

In 1803 an act repealing and amending former 
acts on the importation of slaves was enacted. 
The introduction of negroes from the West Indies 
or South America was prohibited ; and from any 
of the other States unless with a certificate of 
good character. There was no restriction with re- 
spect to Africa.^* 

No more laws regarding importation were 
passed until 1816. Then it was enacted that no 
slave should be brought into the State "from any 
of the United States or territories or countries 
bordering thereon." The only exception was in 
favor of travellers with not more than two slaves, 
or settlers on their way to other States, who, be- 
fore entering South Carolina, were required to 
take an oath with regard to their slaves similar 



"McCord : Stat, at Large of S. C, Vol. VII., p. 447- 
i^Ibid., p. 449. 



Of the Southern States. 115 

to that required by the law of 1802.^^ This law 
was amended in 1817 in part as follows: 

''That every inhabitant of this State who was 
bona fide entitled in his or her own right or in the 
right of his wife, to any slave or slaves on the 
19th day of December, 1816, or hereafter shall 
become entitled to any such slave, by inheritance 
or marriage, shall be permitted to bring them in" 
on certain conditions.^^ Both the law of 1816 and 
that of 1817 were repealed in 1818.^^ 

In 1823 South Carolina made it lawful to 
bring into the State any slave from the ''West 
Indies, South America, or from Europe, or from 
any sister State which may be situated to the 
North of the Potomac River or the City of Wash- 
ington." No slave was allowed to return to 
South Carolina who had been carried out of the 
State and had visited any of these places. The 
penalty was severe, it being $1,000 and forfeiture 
of the slave. ^^ This law was re-enacted in 1835,^^ 

i^Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of 
S. C, 1816, p. 22. 
i^Acts of S. C, 1817, p. 17. 
I'^Laws of South Carolina, 1818, p. 57. 
isibid., 1823, p. 61. 
I91bid., 1835, P- Z7- 



ii6 The Domestic Slave Trade 

and in 1847 ^^ ^^^^ amended to allow slaves to 
return who should go to Cuba, on board of any 
steamboat in the capacity of steward, cook, fire- 
man, engineer, pilot, or mariner, provided he 
had visited none of the other restricted places.^" 
It was amended again in 1848 and Baltimore 
and all ports on the Chesapeake Bay in the State 
of Maryland were placed on the same footing 
with regard to the importation of slaves as the 
States south of the Potomac.^^ 

NORTH CAROLINA. 

In 1786 North Carolina passed her first law 
to restrict the importation of slaves from other 
States. It was as follows: 

"Every person who shall introduce into this 
State any slave from any of the United States, 
which have passed laws for the liberation of 
slaves, shall, on complaint thereof before any 
justice of the peace be compelled by such justice 
to enter into bond with sufficient surety, in the sum 
of $100 current money for each slave, for the re- 
moving of such slave to the State from whence 



24Ibid., 1848, Dec. 19, 1848. 
2iLaws of S. C, 1848, Dec. 19, 1848. 



Of the Southern States. 117 

such slave was brought, within three months 
thereafter, the penalty to be recovered, one-half 
for the use of the State, the other half for the 
use of the prosecutor, or failure of a compliance 
therewith ; and the person introducing such slave 
shall also, in case of such failure, forfeit and pay 
the sum of $200, to be recovered by any person 
suing for the same and applied to their use."^^ 
A law of 1794 prohibited the introduction of 
slaves and indentured servants of color. Ex- 
ceptions were made of slave owners coming to 
the States to reside and of citizens of North 
Carolina inheriting slaves in other States.^^ In 
1795 emigrants from the West Indies, Bahama 
Islands, French, Dutch and Spanish settlements 
on the southern coast of America, were prevented 
from bringing in slaves who were more than fif- 



22Revised Statutes, by Authority of the General As- 
sembly, 1836-7, Vol. 11. , p. 575. Chap. III., Sec. 19. 
We could not find that it was ever repealed. It is to 
be found in the Revised Code of North Carolina, 1854. 
As this was taken from the Revised Statutes of 1836-7, 
it is natural to find the penalty expressed in dollars, 
rather than in pounds. 

23Hayward: A Manual of the Laws of N. C, to 1817 
inclusive, p. 533. Must have been repealed between 
1817 and 1819, as it is not in the Revised Statutes of 
1819. 



ii8 The Domestic Slave Trade 

teen years of age. An act of 1776, however, al- 
lowed slaves to be brought in who belonged 
to residents near the Virginia and South Carolina 
boundaries.^* A law was passed in 1816 which 
provided that slaves brought into North Carolina 
from foreign countries contrary to the act of 
Congress of 1807, to be sold. No more laws 
concerning importation were passed after the re- 
peal of the laws against importation about 1818.^* 

GEORGIA. 

Georgia passed a law against the importation 
of slaves in 1793.^^ This seemed to apply only 
to slaves imported fromi without the United 
States. In 1798 a new constitution was framed 
which provided /'that there shall be no im- 
portation of slaves into this State from Africa 
or any foreign place after the first of October 
next."2« 

In 1817 the following was enacted: 

"It shall not be lawful, except in cases herein 



24Hurd : Law of Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II., p. 
84. 

25Hurd: Freedom and Bondage. Vol. II., p. loi. 
26Poore : Fed. and State Constitutions, Part I., p. 395- 



Of the Southern States. 119 

authorized and allowed for any person or persons 
whatever to bring, import or introduce into this 
State, to aid, or assist, or knowingly to become 
concerned or interested in bringing, importing 
or introducing into this State, either by land or 
by water, or in any manner whatsoever, any 
slave or slaves." Citizens of Georgia and those 
of other States coming to Georgia to live were 
permitted to bring in slaves for their own use. 
Before importing them they were required to 
make oath before the proper authorities that they 
were not imported for sale, or hire, lend, or mort- 
gage. The act was not to extend to travellers.-^ 
This act was repealed in 1824 and slaves then 
were imported and disposed of without restric- 
tion.^^ The law of 1817 was revised in 1829; 
modified in 1836; again repealed in 1841 ; re- 
vived again in 1842.^^ 

In 1835 a law was enacted making any one 
subject to fine and imprisonment who should 
bring into Georgia any male slave who had been 

27Acts of General Assembly of Ga., 1817, p. 139. 
28Ibid., 1824, p. 124. 

29Hurd: Law of Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II., p. 
103. 



I20 The Domestic Slave Trade 

to a non-slave-holding State or to any foreign 
country.^^ 

In 1849 "^^^ laws and parts of laws, civil and 
criminal, forbidding or in any manner restricting 
the importation of slaves into this State from any 
other slave-holding State" were repealed. Cities 
and towns were given the right to regulate the 
sale of slaves by traders, and to prescribe the 
places in their jurisdiction where slaves might 
be kept and sold.^^ In 1852 so much of this law 
as had reference to importation of slaves was 
repealed and the act of 18 17 was revived. ^^ But 
the penitentiary imprisonment clause was elimi- 
nated. The law of 1852 was repealed by the 
Legislature of 1855-6 and the act of 1849 ^^'^s 
revived thus again opening the State to the unre- 
stricted importation of slaves.^^ 

MARYLAND. 

In 1783 Maryland prohibited the importation 
of slaves. It was amended in 1791 and also in 



soActs of the State of Ga., 1835, p. 267. 
3iLaws of Ga., 1849-50, p. 374. 
32Acts of Ga., 185 1-2, p. 263. 
33Acts of Ga., 1855-6, p. 271. 



Of the Southern States. 121 

1794.^* In 1796 the General Assembly of Mary- 
land enacted : 'That it shall not be lawful, from 
and after the passing of this act to import or 
bring into this State, by land or water, any negro, 
mulatto, or other slave, for sale, or to reside 
within this State; and any person brought into 
this State as a slave contrary to this act, if a slave 
before, shall thereupon immediately cease to be 
the property of the person or persons so import- 
ing or bringing such slave within the State, and 
shall be free." 

Immigrants to the State were allowed to bring 
in their own slaves, at the time of removal or 
within one year afterward. It was required that 
these slaves should have been within the United 
States three years. ^^ In 1797 this law was modi- 
fied in favor of those coming into Maryland to re- 
side. In 1810 a law was passed to prevent those 
who were slaves for a limited time from being 
sold out of the State.^^ 



s^Hurd : Law o£ Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II., p. I9- 
35Maxcy: The Laws of Md., Vol. II., p. 351- Co. 67. 

Hurd: Vol. II., p. 21. 
36Ibid. : 1897, Chap. 15. Other exceptions by Public 

and Private Acts, 1798, C 76; 1812, C. 76; 1813, C. 

55; 1818-19, C. 201; Hurd: Vol. IL, p. 19. 



122 The Domestic Slave Trade 

In 1817 a law was passed regulating the ex- 
portation of slaves as follows : 

*'That whenever any person shall purchase 
any slave or slaves within this State, for the pur- 
pose of exporting or removing the same beyond 
the limits of this State, it shall be their duty 
to take from the seller a bill of sale for said slave 
or slaves, in which the age and distinguishing 
marks as nearly as may be, and the name of 
such slave or slaves shall be inserted and the same 
shall be acknowledged before some justice of the 
peace of the county where the sale shall be made 
and lodged to be recorded in the office of the clerk 
of the said county, within twenty days, and the 
clerk shall immediately on the receipt thereof, 
actually record the same and deliver a copy 
thereof on demand to the purchaser, with a cer- 
tificate endorsed thereupon under the seal of the 
county of the same being duly recorded/'-"^^ 

The following year (1818) a law was passed 
which provided that any slave convicted of a 
crime, which, in the judgment of the court should 



37Dorsey: General Laws of Md., 1692 to 1839, Vol. 
L, p. 661. 



Of the Southern States. 123 

not be punished by hanging, might be trans- 
ported for sale.^^ In 1846 the legislature enacted 
that slaves, sentenced to the penitentiary should 
be publicly sold at the expiration of their service 
and transported.^^ 

In 1 83 1 a very restrictive law was enacted. 
It prohibited the introduction of slaves into the 
State either for sale or residence.*^ The restric- 
tive policy did not continue long, for in 1833 the 
barrier to the introduction of slaves for resi- 
dence was withdrawn. Persons removing to the 
State with the intention of becoming citizens 
were required to pay a tax on every slave in- 
troduced for the benefit of the State Colonization 
Society.*^ This act was supplemented by another 
in 1839. Immigrants were required to make affi- 
davit that it was their intention to become citi- 
zens of the State, and to pay a tax on their slaves 
imported from five to fifteen dollars, according 

ssLaws of Md., 1818, C 197, Sec. 2. 

Dorsey: Vol. I., p. 702. 
39Laws of Md., 1846, Chap. 340, Sec. 2. 
40Dorsey: Gen. Public and Private Stat. Law, Vol. 
II., p. 1069; C 323, Sec. 4. 
4iDorsey: Ibid., Vol. I., p. 335, note. 

Laws of Gen. Assembly of Md., 1833-4, Chap. 87. 



124 The Domestic Slave Trade 

to age.*^ In 1847 a provision was made to allow 
guardians, executors and trustees residing in the 
State to bring in slaves appointed by a last will.*^ 
In 1850 all laws against the importation of life 
slaves was repealed except such as extended to 
those who were slaves for a term of years or 
those convicted of crime in another State.** Mary- 
land continued open to the introduction of 
slaves.*^ 

DELAWARE. 

Delaware has the distinction of being the only 
one of the original Southern States to embody a 
declaration unfavorable to the importation of 
slaves in her first constitution. In that of 1776 
she says: 

"No person hereafter imported into this State 
from Africa ought to be held in slavery under 
any pretense whatever; and no negro, Indian, 



'i2Dorsey: Laws of Md.. 1692 to 1839, inclusive, Vol. 
III., p. 2325. Laws of 1839, Ch. 155. 

-^^Laws of Md. 1847, Chap. 232, Sec. i. 

44Laws of Md.. 1849-50, Oiap. 165. Sec. L. XL. TV. 

45Mackall, Md. Code, adopted by Leg. i860, Vol. I., 
P- 450. 



Of the Southern States. 125 

or mulatto ought to be brought into this State 
for sale from any part of the world."*® 

In 1787 a law was passed regulating the ex- 
portation of slaves. A permit was required to 
export negroes.*^ A law permitting the introduc- 
tion of slaves who were devised or inherited was 
enacted. The law against exportation was made 
more severe.*^ 

In 1793 another law was enacted to further 
regulate the exportation of slaves. It only made a 
slight change. Any negro exported contrary to 
the act was to have his freedom.*® In 1828 courts 
were given the right to sentence slaves for cer- 
tain offenses to be exported. Those thus ex- 
ported were not allowed to return to the State.^** 
There were re-enactments in 1827 and in 1829 
concerning the exportation of slaves. ^^ In 1833 
a law was passed to enable farmers to carry slaves 



^epoore : Fed. and State Constitutions, Part I., p. 277. 

47Hurd: Vol. II., p. 74. 

48Ibid., p. 75. 

<9Laws of State of Del., 1793, P- i05-6. This act of 
Del. was sustained by the Court of Baltimore in a case 
brought before it in 1840. Liberator, July 24, 1840. 

soLaws of Delaware, Dover, 1829, Vol. VII., p. 122, 
Feb. 7, 1829. 

BiHurd: Vol. II., pp. 79-8o. 



126 The Domestic Slave Trade 

into Maryland to cultivate land without incurring 
any penalty.^- There seems to have been no more 
enactments of Delaware concerning importation 
or exportation of slaves. 

LOUISIANA. 

The act of Congress in 1804 erecting Louisiana 
into a territory prohibited the introduction of 
slaves into it from without the United States.' 
Only slaves imported before May i, 1798, could 
be introduced, and those had to be slaves of actual 
settlers. ^^ An act of Louisiana in 1810 was to 
prevent the introducing of slaves who had been 
guilty of crime. ^* 

It was not until 1826 that Louisiana as a 
State passed any law against the introduction of 
slaves as merchandise. But this year it was en- 
acted "That no person or persons shall after the 
first day of June 1826, bring into this State any 
slave or slaves with the intention to sell or hire 
the same." Citizens of Louisiana and immigrants 

52Laws of Del., Vol. VIII., p. 246. Dover, 1837, 
passed Feb. 5, 1833. 
ssPoore : Fed. and State Constitutions, Part I., p. 693. 
^Hurd: Freedom and Bondage, Vol. XL, p. I59- 



Of the Southern States. 127 

could bring in their own slaves, but were not al- 
lowed to hire, exchange or sell them within two 
years after such importation.^^ This act was re- 
pealed in 1828,^® but in 1829 another law was 
passed which required that any one who should 
introduce slaves above twelve years of age to 
have a certificate for each slave, signed by two 
respectable and well known free-holders of the 
county from which the slaves were brought, ac- 
companied with their declaration on oath that 
the slaves had never been guilty of crime, and 
that they were of good character. Children under 
ten years of age could not be brought in separate 
from their mother.^^ This was repealed March 24, 
1831.^^ Almost immediately after the South- 
ampton Massacre in Virginia, Louisiana called 
an extra session of her legislature. The only im- 
portant act of the session was an act prohibiting 
importation of slaves for sale or hire. Immi- 
grants and citizens were prohibited from bring- 

s^Acts of Second Sess. of Seventh Legislature, pp. 
114-116. 
56Acts 2nd Sess. 8th Leg. (1828), p. 22. 
s^Laws of La., 1829, ist Sess. 9th Leg., p. 38. 
s^Laws of La., 183 1, p. ^(i. 



128 The Domestic Slave Trade 

ing in slaves from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida 
and Arkansas. Those permitted to be brought 
in could not be sold or hired within five years. 
A certificate as in the law of 1829 was also re- 
quired. '^^ It was amended during the same ses- 
sion and the States of Tennessee, Kentucky and 
Missouri were included in the prohibition.^*^ It 
was repealed in 1834®^ and no other law with 
respect to the importation of slaves was ever en- 
acted by Louisiana. 

MISSISSIPPI. 

The Act of Congress in 1798, establishing a 
government in the Mississippi Territory pro- 
hibited the importation of slaves from without 
the United States,^^ and the constitution of 1817 
excluded slaves guilty of "high crimes in other 
States."«^ 

The territorial act of 1808 made it unlawful 



s9Acts of Extra Sess. of loth Leg. of La., p. 4. 
eoHurd: Vol. II., p. 162. 
^^Laws of La., 1834, p. 6. 

«2Poore: Fed. and State Constitutions, Part XL, p. 
1050. 

^sjbid., p. 1064. 



Of the Southern States. 129 

"to expose for sale any slave above fifteen years 
of age without having previously exhibited to the 
chief justice of the Orphans' Court of the county 
where offered for sale, a certificate signed by 
two respectable freeholders living in the county 
from whence the slave was brought, describing 
the stature, complexion, sex, name, and not to 
have been guilty of any murder, crime, arson, 
burglary, felony, larceny to their knowledge or 
belief where he came from, which certificate 
shall be signed and acknowledged before the 
clerk of the county from whence he came, and 
certification by said clerk that those whose names 
are prefixed are respectable freeholders. . . . 
Such certificates aforesaid shall be registered 
with the register of the orphans' court where 
such slaves are sold, the seller taking oath that 
he believes said certificate is just and true."^* 

In 1819 another act was passed to amend the 
law of 1808. Slaves brought into the State as 
merchandise were made subject to a tax of twenty 
dollars each. A certificate was required as in the 

^Turner: Statutes of the Miss. Territory, Digested 
by Authority of the General Assembly, (1816) p. 386-7. 



130 The Domestic Slave Trade 

law of 1808, but it was not to apply to those 
brought in for their own use by citizens and immi- 
grants except those from Louisiana and the Ala- 
bama territory.^^ An act of 1822 reduced into one 
the several acts concerning slaves, free negroes 
and mulattoes, but no important changes were 
made with regard to the importation of slaves. ®® 

The new constitution of 1832, like that of 1817, 
excluded slaves guilty of "high crime in other 
States." It declared, also, that "The introduction 
of slaves into this State as merchandise, or for 
sale, shall be prohibited from and after the first 
day of May eighteen hundred and thirty-three."^^ 

This provision of the constitution gave rise to 
a great deal of litigation f^ nor was it effective in 
prohibiting importation of slaves. The latter ap- 
pears from the fact that in 1837 by an act of the 
legislature "the business of introducing or im- 
porting slaves into this State as merchandise, or 
for sale be, and the same is hereby prohibited." 

^Acts of 1st Sess. of 2nd Gen. Assem. of Miss., p. 5. 
€^Laws Miss., Adj'd. Sess. June, 1822, p. 179. 
^''Poore: Fed. and State Constitutions, Part II., p. 
1077. 
68De Bow's Review, Vol. VIIL, p. 23. 



Of the Southern States. 131 

The penalty was $5cmd and six months' imprison- 
ment for each slave so brought in, and notes 
which might be given for slaves were not collect- 
able.^^ This law was repealed in 1846/" 

ALABAMA. 

The first law passed by Alabama concerning 
the importation of slaves was for the purpose of 
carrying into effect the laws of the United 
States prohibiting the slave trade. This was en- 
acted in 1823 and provided that slaves imported 
should be employed on public works or sold for 
the State.^i 

But on January 13, 1827, it was enacted that 
"if any person or persons, shall bring into this 
State any slave or slaves, for the purpose of sale 
or hire, or shall sell or hire, any slave or slaves 
brought into this State after the first day of 
August next, such person or persons shall for- 
feit and pay the sum of $1,000 for each negro 
so brought in, one-half thereof to the person suing 

«9Laws of Miss, from 1824 to 1838, Pub. by Author- 
ity of Legislature, p. 758. 
70Hurd: Vol. II., p. 148. 
7ilbid., p. 150. 



132 The Domestic Slave Trade 

for the same and the other half to the use of the 
State. And, moreover, any person thus offend- 
ing shall be subject to indictment, and on convic- 
tion shall be liable to be fined a sum not exceed- 
ing five hundred dollars for each offense and shall 
be imprisoned not exceeding three months, at the 
discretion of the jury trying such offense." 

Citizens of the State, however, were allowed 
to purchase negroes for their own use but could 
not sell them until two years after being brought 
into the State.^^ This law was repealed in 1829.^-^ 

Another prohibitive law was passed January 
16, 1832. But immigrants were allowed to bring 
their own slaves with them and citizens of the 
State could import slaves for their own use, 
when these introduced slaves returns were to be 
made upon oath to the county courts within thirty 
days, describing them, and declaring that they 
were not introduced for the purpose of sale or 
hire. Citizens of Alabama could import slaves 
which might have become theirs by inheritance or 
marriage. The provisions of the law did not ap- 

72Acts of Assembly of Ala., 1827, p. 44. 
■^sibid., 1829. p. 63. 



Of the Southern States. 133 

ply to travellers, nor to citizens temporarily re- 
moved from the State.'^* This was repealed De- 
cember 4, 1832/^ and no other prohibitive law was 
enacted. 

KENTUCKY. 
The laws passed by Virginia concerning im- 
portation of slaves prior to 1790 were in force in 
Kentucky until 1798."^® This year an act reduc- 
ing into one several acts, concerning slaves, free 
negroes, mulattoes and Indians was passed. No 
slaves could be imported into Kentucky who were 
introduced into the United States from foreign 
countries, except by immigrants who did not 
violate this provision. Citizens could do the same. 
But no slaves might be imported as merchan- 
dise.'^'' An act amending this was approved Feb- 
ruary 8, 181 5. No one was allowed to bring 
slaves into Kentucky except those intending to 
settle in the State, and they were required to take 
the following oath: 



■^^Acts o£ Assembly of Ala., 1831-2, pp. 12-13-14. 
75Ibid., 1832-3, p. 5. 
76Hurd: Vol. II., pp. 14-15. 

'^'^Toulmin : A Collection of all the Acts of Ky. now 
in Force (1802), pp. 307-308. 
Hurd: Vol. II., pp. 14-15. 



134 The Domestic Slave Trade 

"I, A. B., do swear (or affirm) that my removal 
to the State of Kentucky, was with an intention 
to become a citizen thereof, and that I have 
brought with me no slave or slaves, and will bring 
no slave or slaves to this State with the intention 
of selling them.'"^^ 

In 1833 it ^vas enacted ''That each and every 
person who shall hereafter import into this State 
any slave or slaves, or who shall sell or buy, or 
contract for the sale, or purchase, for a longer 
term than one year, of the service of any such 
slave or slaves, knowing the same to have been 
imported as aforesaid, he, she, or they, so offend- 
ing, shall forfeit $600 for each slave so imported, 
sold or bought or whose service has been so con- 
tracted for."^9 

It was not to apply to immigrants provided they 
took the required oath ; nor to citizens of Ken- 
tucky who derived their "title by will, descent, 
distribution, marriage, gift, or in consideration 
of marriage ;" nor to travellers who could prove 



78Acts. Leg. 1814-15, pp. 435-6. 
79Ibid., 1832-33, p. 258. 



Of the Southern States. 135 

to the satisfaction of a jury that the slaves were 
for necessary attendance.^^ 

There were minor acts and quite a number of 
acts of a private character. 

TENNESSEE. 

Tennessee was originally a part of North Caro- 
lina and the laws of North Carolina which were in 
force at the time of the cession of Tennessee to the 
United States in 1790 were continued in force in 
Tennessee.^^ 

The first law passed by Tennessee with refer- 
ence to importation of slaves was in 1812. It 
prohibited their importation as merchandise for a 
term of five years. Persons coming as settlers 
or residents who had acquired slaves by descent, 
devise, marriage, or purchase for their own use 
were permitted to import them. Immigrants 
were obliged to take the following oath : 

"I, A. B., do solemnly swear or affirm that I 
have removed myself and slaves to the State of 
Tennessee with the full and sole view of becom- 



soLaws of Kentucky, 1832-33, p. 258. 
siHurd: Vol. II., p. 89 and Note 2. 



136 The Domestic Slave Trade 

ing a citizen, and that I have not brought my 
slave or slaves to this State with any view to the 
securing of the same against any rebellion or 
apprehension of rebellion, so help me God."^^ 

No other law concerning importation was en- 
acted until 1826. It was practically the same as 
that of 1812 except that it was a perpetual act 
and no one was allowed to introduce slaves which 
had been guilty of crimes in other States. ^^ This 
act continued in force until 1855 when so much 
of it was repealed as related to the importation 
of slaves as merchandise.^* 

MISSOURI, ARKANSAS, FLORIDA AND 
TEXAS. 

The Constitution of Missouri (1820) circum- 
scribed the powers of the legislature with refer- 
ence to importation of slaves as follows : 

"The General Assembly shall have no power to 
pass laws to prevent bona fide immigrants to this 
State or actual settlers therein from bringing 

s2Acts of Tenn., 2nd Sess., 9th Gen. Assembly 
(1812), p. 84. 

83Acts of the Extra Sess. of the i6th General As- 
sembly of Tennessee, 1826, p. 31. 

s^Acts of General Assembly of Tenn., 1855-6, p. 71. 



Of the Southern States. 137 

from any of the United States, or from any of 
their territories, such persons as may there be 
deemed to be slaves, so long as any persons of the 
same description are allowed to be held as slaves 
by the laws of this State. 

''They shall have power to pass laws : 

"To prohibit the introduction into this State of 
any slaves who may have committed any high 
crime in any other State or territory ; 

"To prohibit the introduction of any slave for 
the purpose of speculation, or as an article of 
trade or merchandise ; 

"To prohibit the introduction of any slave or the 
offspring of any slave, who heretofore may have 
been, or who hereafter may be imported from any 
foreign country into the United States or any ter- 
ritory thereof in contravention of any existing 
statue of the United States/'^^ 

The first constitutions of most of the other 
Southern States had provisions somewhat similar 
to these among which are Arkansas,^^ Florida,^^ 
and Texas. ^^ 



ssPoore: Fed. and State Con., Part II., p. 1107. 

86Ibid., Part L, p. 113. 

*^Ibid., p. 329. 

^Ibid., Part IL, p. 1779. 



138 The Domestic Slave Trade 

The only laws passed by Missouri regarding 
importation were those of 1835, 1843 ^^^ 1845. 
The law of 1843 simply prohibited the importation 
of slaves entitled to freedom at a future date^^ and 
against kidnapping in 1845.''^ The law of 1835 
was the leading one. It prohibited the introduc- 
tion of any slave who had elsewhere committed 
any infamous crime, or any who had been re- 
moved from Missouri for crime, or any imported 
into the United States contrary to law.®^ 

Texas^^ and Florida®^ as States seem never to 
have prohibited the importation of slaves except 
those guilty of crime. 

The only act of Arkansas concerning importa- 
tion was passed in 1838 and put in force by 
proclamation of the Governor IMarch 20, 1839. 
It was never repealed so far as we could find, and 
is as follows: 

"No person shall knowingly bring or cause to 



89Hiird: Vol. II., p. 170. 

^Revised Statutes of Mo.. Revised and Digested by 
13th Gen. Assembly (1844-5), P- 35i- 
»iRevised Statutes of Mo. (1844-5), p. 1013- 
92Hurd: Vol. II., p. 199- 
»3Ibid., p. 192. 



Of the Southern States. 139 

be brought into this State, or hold, purchase, hire, 
sell, or otherwise dispose of within the same; 
first, any slave who may have committed in any 
other State, territory or district w ithin the United 
States, or any foreign country, any offense, which, 
if committed within the State, would, according 
to the laws thereof, be felony or infamous crime ; 
or second, any slave who shall have been convicted 
in this State, of any felony or infamous crime, 
and ordered to be taken or removed out of this 
State, according to the laws thereof ; or third, any 
slave who shall have actually been removed out of 
this State after a conviction of felony or other 
infamous crime, although no order of removal 
shall have been made ; or fourth, any person or 
the descendant of any person, who shall have been 
imported into the United States, or any of the 
territories thereof in contravention of the laws 
of the United States, and held as a slave/'^* 



^^English: Digest of Statutes of Arkansas, p. 947, 
Chap. 154, Sec. 30. Same law in Digest by Gould, pub. 
1858, by authority of Legislature, Chap. 162, Sec. 28. 



140 The Domestic Slave Trade 



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144 The Domestic Slave Trade 

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146 The Domestic Slave Trade 

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148 The Domestic Slave Trade 

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150 The Domestic Slave Trade 

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Of the Southern States. 151 

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Snow Hill Messenger and Worcester County 

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North Carolina Standard, Raleigh, N. C. 1837. 



152 The Domestic Slave Trade 



LAWS. 

Alabama: 

Act of the* General Assembly of 1827, 1831-2, 
1832-3, 1840-41. 

Arkansas: 

A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas embracing 
all laws of a general and Permanent Charac- 
ter in Force at the close of the Session of the 
General Assembly of 1846. Little Rock, 
Ark. 1848. 

Delaware: 

Laws of 1793; 1829, i" Vol. VIL; 1833 in Vol. 
VIIL 

Florida: 

Laws of 1850-51. 

Georgia : 

Acts of the General Assembly of 1817, 1824, 1835, 
1849-50, 1855-6. 

Oliver H. Prince : A Digest of the Laws of Geor- 
gia in force December, 1837. By Authority 
of the Legislature. Athens, Ga. 1837. 

Ke7ttJicky: 

Laws of 1814-15, 1832-33. 

Harry Toulmin : A Collection of all Public and 
Permanent Acts of the General Assembly 
of Kentucky which are now in Force. Frank- 
ford, Ky. 1802. 

Louisiajia: 

Laws of 1826, 1828, 1829, 1 83 1, (also Extra Sess. 
1831). 1834. 



Of the Southern States. 153 

Maryland: 

Laws of 1809, 1818, 1833-4, 1846, 1847, 1849-50. 

Clement Dorsey: The General Public Statutory 
Law and Public Local Law of the State of 
Maryland from the year 1692 to 1836 in- 
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Virgil Maxcy: The Revised Laws of Maryland. 
3 vols. Baltimore. 181 1. 

Henry C. Mackall : The Maryland Code Adopted 
by the Legislature in i860. Baltimore, i860. 

Mississippi: 

Laws . . . from January Session 1824 to the 
January Session 1838 inclusive. Published 
by Authority of the Legislature. Jackson, 
Miss. 1838. 

Laws of 1819. Adjd. Sess. 1822. 

(Turner) : Statutes of the Mississippi Territory, 
Digested by authority of the General As- 
sembly. Natchez, 1816. 

A. Hutchinson: Code of Mississippi from 1798 
to 1848. Jackson, 1848. 

Missouri: 

Laws of the State of Missouri. Revised and Di- 
gested by Authority of the General Assem- 
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Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri. Re- 
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North Carolina: 

Laws of the State of North Carolina as are now 
in Force in this State. Revised under Au- 
thority of the General Assembly of 1819. 2 
vols. Raleigh, 1821. 



154 The ^Dom^stic Slave . Trade 

Revised Statutes passed by the General Assembly 
of 1836-7. 2 vols. Raleigh, 1837^ 

John Haywood : A Manual of the Laws of North 
CaroHna; (4th Ed.) Raleigh, 1819. 

South Carolina: 

Laws of 1816, 1817, 1818, 1823, 1835, ^^Zy^ 1847, 
1848. 

Acts of the General Assembly of the State of 
South Carolina from February 1791 to De- 
cember 1794, both inclusive, ist vol. 1795 to 
1804, both inclusive. Columbia, 1808. 

David J. McCord: The Statutes at Large of 
South Carolina. Edited under Authority of 
the Legislature. Vol. VIL Columbia, 1840. 

Tennessee: 

Laws of 1812, Extra Sess. 1826, 1855. 

Virginia: 

Acts of the General Assembly of 1810-11, 1818- 

Samuel Shepherd : The Statutes at Large of Vir- 
ginia, from October Session 1792 to Decem- 
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Series). Being a continuation of Hening. 
Richmond, 1835 and 1836. 

Wm. Waller Hening : Statutes at Large of Vir- 
ginia. 13 vols. Richmond, 1812. 

United States, Statutes at Large Vol. V. 

T. R. R. Cobb: Law of Negro Slavery in the 
Various States of the United States. Phila- 
delphia, 1856. 

John Codman Hurd : The Law of Freedom and 
Bondage in the United States. 2 vols. Bos- 
ton, 1862. 



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